With Christ in the School of Prayer (9) ... Prayer Provides Laborers

by Dale Shumaker
Spirit Savvy Network
www.spiritsavvy.net

Finding your mission, Empowering your life through prayer,
Becoming a Missionary in the Marketplace
Leading others to be Missionaries in the Marketplace

An all-time Christian Classic on prayer which is a foundational study on prayer that anyone interested in Prayer should read. So, I decided to summarize it chapter by chapter. With Christ in the School of Prayer is a classroom on the Power of Prayer in your Life.

With Christ in the School of Prayer by Andrew Murray,
Chapter 9, Prayer Provides Laborers:

“He would have them understand that prayer is not to be selfish; so here it is the power through which blessing can come to others.  The Father is Lord of the harvest; when we pray for the Holy Spirit, we must pray for Him to prepare and send forth laborers for the work.

‘He saw the multitude, and was moved with compassion on them, because they were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd,’ that He called on the disciples to pray for laborers to be sent among them.  He did so because He really believed that their prayer was needed, and would help.

He knew that as to these men of old, and to Himself for a time, here upon earth, the work of God had been entrusted, so it was now about to pass over into the hands of His disciples.  He knew that when this work should be given in charge to them, it would not be a mere matter of form or show, but that on them, and their being faithful or unfaithful, the success of the work would actually depend.

When they have taken over the work from Him on earth, to make this one of the chief petitions in their prayer:  That the Lord of the harvest Himself would send forth laborers into His harvest.  The God who entrusted them with the work, and made it to so large extent dependent on them, gives them authority to apply to Him for laborers to help, and makes the supply dependent on their prayer.

And how little they believe that our labor-supply depends on prayer, that prayer will really provide ‘as many as he needs.’ The Lord of the harvest will, in answer to prayer, send forth the laborers, and in the solemn conviction that without this prayer fields ready for reaping will be left to perish.

And yet it is so.  So wonderful is the surrender of His work into the hands of His Church, so dependent has the Lord made Himself on them as His body, through whom alone His work can be done, so real is the power which the Lord gives His people to exercise in heaven and earth, 
that the number of the laborers and the measure of the harvest
does actually depend
upon their prayer.

Such prayer will ask and obtain a twofold blessing.  There will first be the desire for the increase of men entirely given up to the service of God.

The other blessing to be asked will not be less.  
Every believer is a laborer;
not one of God’s children who has not been redeemed for service,
and has not his work waiting.

Wherever there is a complaint of the want of helpers, or of fit helpers in God’s work, prayer has the promise of a supply.  There is no Sunday school or no Bible reading or rescue work, where God is not ready and able to provide.  It may take time and importunity, but the command of Christ to ask the Lord of the harvest is the pledge that the prayer will be heard:  ‘I say unto you, he will arise and give him as many as he needs.’

It will make us feel how really we are God’s fellow-workers on earth, to whom a share in His work has in downright earnest been entrusted.  It will make us partakers in the soul travail, but also in the soul satisfaction of Jesus, as we know how, in answer to our prayer.”

More on Prayer Provides Laborers
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/murray/prayer.IX.html
The Christian Classics Ethereal Library has many classic works on prayer and living a Spirit-filled life.