Sunday, January 27, 2013

Secret of the Master’s Indwelling (2) ... the Self Life

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


The Secret of the Master's Indwelling is about digging our roots deep into God’s soil that bears fruit abundantly and gives us strength Supernaturally. Andrew Murray shows what we must do and be to become stalwarts of Faith.

Secret of the Master’s Indwelling, Chapter 2, the Self Life.

“Upon this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
“If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me.”

What lies at the root of it? What is the reason that so many Christians are wasting their lives in the terrible bondage of the world instead of living in the manifestation and the privilege and the glory of the child of God?

To those two questions there is one answer: it is self that is the root of the whole trouble. And therefore, if any one asks me, “How can I get rid of this compromise life?” The answer would be, “A new life from above, the life of Christ, must take the place of the self-life; then alone can we be conquerors.”

“If any man will come after me let him deny himself, his own self, and take up the cross and follow me.” That is a mark of the disciple; that is the secret of the Christian life—deny self and all will come right.

Let us dwell upon this one word, “self.” It is only as we learn to know what self is that we really know what is at the root of all our failure, and are prepared to go to Christ for deliverance. Let us consider, first of all, the nature of this self life.  

“How may we be delivered from it?”


Self is the power with which God has created and endowed every intelligent creature. Self is the very center of a created being. And why did God give the angels or man a self? The object of this self was that we might bring it as an empty vessel unto God; that He might put into it His life. God gave me the power of self-determination, that I might bring this self every day and say: “Oh, God, work in it; I offer it to thee.” God wanted a vessel into which He might pour out His divine fullness of beauty, wisdom and power.

Self turned to God is the glory of allowing the Creator to reveal Himself in us. Self turned away from God is the very darkness and fire of hell.


Now what are the works of self? —self-will, self-confidence, self-exaltation.

Self-will, pleasing self, is the great sin of man, and it is at the root of all that compromising with the world which is the ruin of so many. Men cannot understand why they should not please themselves and do their own will. Numbers of Christians have never gotten hold of the idea that a Christian is a man who is never to seek his own will, but is always to seek the will of God, as a man in whom the very spirit of Christ lives.

“Lo, I come to do Thy will, oh, my God!”
We find Christians pleasing themselves in a thousand ways, and yet trying to be happy, and good, and useful; and they do not know that at the root of it all is self-will robbing them of the blessing.

Just think of it! No wonder Peter wept those bitter tears. It was a choice between self, that ugly, cursed self, and that beautiful, blessed Son of God; and Peter chose self. No wonder that he thought: “Instead of denying myself, I have denied Jesus; what a choice I have made!” No wonder that he wept bitterly.

Remember this: every time you please yourself, you deny Jesus. It is one of the two. You must please Him only, and deny self, or you must please yourself and deny Him. Then follows self-confidence, self-trust, self-effort, self-dependence.

Self-confidence. It was simply self-confidence. People have often asked me, “What is the reason I fail? If you trusted God and Jesus, you could not fall, but you trust yourself.” The cause of every failure in the Christian life is nothing but this. I trust this cursed self, instead of trusting Jesus. I trust my own strength, instead of the almighty strength of God. And that is why Christ says, “This self must be denied.”

Then there is self-exaltation. Ah, how much pride and jealousy is there in the Christian world; how much sensitiveness to what men say of us or think of us; how much desire of human praise and pleasing men, instead of always living in the presence of God, with the one thought: “Am I pleasing to Him?”

What are we to do to get rid of it?
Jesus answers us in the words of our text: “If any man will come after me, let him take up his cross and follow me.” Note it well.—I must deny myself and take Jesus himself as my life,—I must choose. There are two lives, the self life and the Christ life; I must choose one of the two. “Follow me,” says our Lord, “make me the law of your existence, the rule of your conduct; give me your whole heart; follow me, and I will care for all.” Oh, friends, see the danger of this self, with its pride and its wickedness.
He in the depths of sorrow. Jesus led him on, past the led Peter on until he was broken down in utter self-abasement, and humbled grave, through the Resurrection, up to Pentecost, and the Holy Spirit came, and in the Holy Spirit Christ with His divine life came, and then it was, “Christ lives in me.”

There is but one way of being delivered from this life of self.
We must follow Christ, set our hearts upon Him, listen to His teachings, give ourselves up every day, that He may be all to us, and by the power of Christ the denial of self will be a blessed, unceasing reality.


The first lesson will be that we should take time, and that we should humble ourselves before God, at the thought of what this self is in us; put down to the account of the self every sin, every shortcoming, all failure, and all that has been dishonoring to God, and then say, “Lord, this is what I am;” and then let us allow the blessed Jesus Christ to take entire control of our life, in the faith that His life can be ours.

Do not think it is an easy thing to get rid of self.

We are called upon to live the life of Christ, and Christ comes to live His life in us; but one thing must first take place; we must learn to hate this self, and to deny it. As Peter said, when he denied Christ, “I have nothing to do with him,” so we must say, “I have nothing to do with self,” that Christ Jesus may be all in all. Let us humble ourselves at the thought of what this self has done to us and how it has dishonored Jesus.

Let us pray that fervently, and then let us wait upon God until we get away from all our religious exercises, and from all our religious experience, and from all our blessings, until we get close to God, with this one prayer: “Lord God, self has been the ruin of my life and the cause of every failure; oh, discover it to me.” And then comes the blessed exchange, that a man is made willing and able to say: “Another will live the life for me, another will live with me, another will do all for me,” Nothing else will do. Deny self; take up the cross, to die with Jesus; follow Him only.

The complete chapter on the Self Life
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/murray/indwelling.v.html
The Christian Classics Ethereal Library and many great classic works on Christian Growth, by the best of the Saints of Old who’s works have been passed down through the ages.


Saturday, January 26, 2013

Secret of the Master’s Indwelling (1) ... the Carnal Christian

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


The Secret of the Master's Indwelling is about digging our roots deep into God’s soil that bears fruit abundantly and gives us strength Supernaturally. Andrew Murray shows what we must do and be to become stalwarts of Faith.

Secret of the Master’s Indwelling, Chapter 1, the Carnal Christian.

"The Church of Christ there are two classes of Christians. Some have lived many years as believers, and yet always remain babes, are carnal; others are spiritual men, because they have given themselves up to the power, the leading and to the entire rule of the Holy Ghost. If we are to obtain a blessing, we must first decide to which of these classes we belong. Are we, by the grace of God, in deep humility living a spiritual life, or are we living a carnal life?


From what we find in Corinthians, the marks of the carnal state. First: It is simply a condition of protracted infancy.

This is just the condition of many believers. They are converted; yet, somehow, there is very little growth in spirituality, in the real heavenly life. We come into contact with them, and we feel at once there is something wanting; there is none of the beauty of holiness or of the power of God’s Spirit in them. This is the condition of the carnal Corinthians.

The other sign of an infant is this: he can do nothing to help his fellow-man. Every man is expected to contribute something to the welfare of society; every one has a place to fill and a work to do.  They take a part in work, as it is called, but there is little of exercising spiritual power and carrying real blessing.

The second mark of the carnal state is this: There is sin and failure continually. strife or bitterness or envying is often shown by him. Alas! Alas! In we are told that the works of the flesh are specially hatred and envy. How often among Christians do we see divisions and bitterness! God have mercy upon them, that the fruit of the Spirit, which is love, is so frequently absent from His own people.

A third mark which will explain further what I have been saying, is that this carnal state may be found in existence in connection with great spiritual gifts. In the 12th and 14th chapters we see that the gifts of prophecy and of working miracles were in great power among them; but the graces of the Spirit were noticeably absent. I may have influence, and gather a large congregation, and yet, alas! I may be a carnal man; a man who may be used by God, and may be a blessing to others, and yet the carnal life may still mark me.

Now, in these carnal Corinthians there was a little of God’s Spirit, but the flesh predominated; the Spirit had not the rule of their whole life. And the spiritual men are not called so because there is no flesh in them, but because the Spirit in them has obtained dominance, you feel that the Spirit of God has sanctified them. Ah, let us beware lest the blessing God gives us in our work deceive us and lead us to think that because he has blessed us, we must be spiritual men. God may give us gifts that we use, and yet our lives may not be wholly in the power of the Holy Ghost.


The marks of the spiritual man are that he will be a meek man; and that he will have power, and love to help and restore those that are fallen. The carnal man cannot do that.

How can I enter into the spiritual state?

Nothing cuts the roots of the Christian life so much as unbelief. People do not believe what God has said about what He is willing to do for His children. Men do not believe that when God says, “Be filled with the Spirit,” He means it for every Christian.

The first thing that we need is to study, and to take home God’s Word, to our belief until our hearts are filled with the assurance that we can be spiritual men. God’s Word teaches us that God does not expect a man to live as he ought for one minute unless the Holy Spirit is in him to enable him to do it.

Then comes the second step; a man must see the shame and guilt of his having lived such a life. Some people admit there is a spiritual life to live, and that they have not lived it, and they are sorry for themselves, and pity themselves.

But there is one step for a man to get out of the carnal life into the spiritual life. It is when a man utterly breaks with the flesh; when he gives up the flesh into the crucifixion death of Christ; when he sees that everything about it is accursed and that he cannot deliver himself from it; and then claims the slaying power of Christ’s cross within him,—it is when a man does this and says: “This spiritual life prepared for me is the free gift of my God in Christ Jesus,” that he understands how one step can bring him out of the carnal into the spiritual state.

A man must take that step, a solemn but blessed step.

Will you not take the step? God grant that we may be led by His Spirit to a yielding up of ourselves to Him as never before. Will you not come in humble confession that, He has not made you what you want to be—a spiritual man? It is the Holy Spirit alone who by His indwelling can make a spiritual man.

Come then and cast yourself at God’s feet, with this one thought, “Lord, I give myself an empty vessel to be filled with Your Spirit.” Each one of you sees every day at the tea table an empty cup set there, waiting to be filled with tea when the proper time comes.

Bow down in the deepest emptiness of soul, and say, “Oh, God, I have nothing!” and then surely as you place yourself before Him you have a right to say, “My God will fulfill His promise! I claim from Him the filling of the Holy Spirit to make me, instead of a carnal, a spiritual Christian.” If you place yourself at His feet, and tarry there; if you abide in that humble surrender and that childlike trust, as sure as God lives the blessing will come.

The complete chapter on Carnal Christians
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/murray/indwelling.iv.html
The Christian Classics Ethereal Library and many great classic works on Christian Growth, by the best of the Saints of Old who’s works have been passed down through the ages. 

 

Thursday, January 24, 2013

Spirit Savvy Network … a vision for invigorating lifestyle

by Dale Shumaker
Spirit Savvy Network

www.spiritsavvy.net

I shared my vision with someone over coffee. Then a few days later someone else suggested I share it on my Facebook page. So I did. This is the flow of thought that came out to explain it.


We have what we call church today. I have had a vision of what this should be for over 20 years now. So I began, began, began again, quietly, and somewhat unnoticed building an infrastructure for this new "organism" of Spirit, not so much organizational. A True Spiritual move is coming from God's Spirit. I am building an infrastructure for it, so it will be mobilized and fluid. The biggest difference is it will not be brick and mortar, visibly, or organizationally based. But Highly Relationship based(capital letters intended here). I was encouraged by some solid Spiritual leaders of the Church to create it. These past Saints of God have died now. But the vision remains ever so strong in me. When the Spirit of a Sovereign nature hits, a system in Spirit will be in place, people will have access to Spiritual growth systems without prejudice, i.e., it will center around the very person of Jesus Christ with less interest in a "denominational” type-cast of who you are in Spirit...baptist, pentecostal, evangelical, mainline, spiritual, etc., on and on." These names will disappear. It will be back to blocking and tackling(as Vince Lombardi said).

So then the purpose for the Spirit Savvy Network is to facilitate a Spiritual growth system and create an infrastructure for the Principles of Spirit to flourish in life and the marketplace. I saw a huge need here. Over 200 million people in the US alone are not part of the current church system. I am not against church, but it is a man-made system today. It needs to be rejuvenated of which I feel is a noble cause. Those in the system I thought would be the first to say..., “yeah, how can we refine this to the origins of power and dynamic community it was meant to be.”  To my surprise, those in the establish church system seemed lesser receptive to the idea than those outside the system.

I shy away from groups, organizations, ideas that people follow. I simply follow the person I have come to enjoy personally, and finding others who share in that. When people ask, "what church do you go to?" I am perplexed. I don't think that way. I am connected to a Person... not a group. And I connect to those who connect to that Person as well. It's all person to person to person and personal. As Oswald Chambers said I also share, “The Apostle Paul was devoted to a Person, not to a cause. He was absolutely Jesus Christ’s."

The best way I saw was to create a new structural dynamic so it could be vibrant within its own characteristics... in other words self-perpetuating, not organizationally driven.   I have been looking as well for those who would help me to make something better. I have to be honest to my convictions, from the Spirit. I may have to continue pressing on alone in this, but I got to do what I see as the right thing, the best for the creation of God He put on earth.

Well, this has been over a twenty year experience of trying my best to convince others. I am at the place in life I must take what I have been commissioned to do and get it going. Hope to find a few out there to help.
It's a group thing. Many in cooperation are needed.



How will this play out?
Christ in Spirit is not limited. Those in relationship will experience His Presence and His companionship in a walking-the-streets way. Every day activities will have His Presence within it. Compassion and unselfish interests will be prominent. Kindness to others will flourish, and Love will have a natural foothold on everyone's life. Once I had an experience of an established denomination disowning me. I learned a big lesson... the blocking and tackling of Spirit... the Bible talks, Prayer works, Friends in Spirit empower, honesty in life prevails. It's simple, but dynamic when practiced daily. Life joys are simple. Stress is not necessary. We all can do it... rich, poor, smart, slow... we all can do it.

So the Spirit Savvy Network is being created as a platform for those 200 million who really in their hearts seek God and want to find Him. The Spirit Savvy Network is much like open source technologies available that all can use. It simply trains people in the process used within the Acts of the Apostles , what Paul taught in His letters, what Jesus defined in principle is our lifestyle identity.

The main ingredients are
prayer...
tapping into Spiritually fed lifestyle;
our mission
which is God's gifts in us used to empower community which also produces commerce as a byproduct;
a training system
for the individual (the New Breed Mission-ary Entrepreneur);
and develop those to disciple and assist others
(the Entrepreneur Mission-ary Accelerator). 

These components create the Spiritual apparatus for a "Re-freshed, God-freshed" Spiritual Community with Jesus Christ Himself, In Spirit Among Us, to guide the whole thing.


And just to let you know, the characteristics of Ephesians 4 for guiding people are there...
the biz leader who trains and disciples others is like a pastor,
the entrepreneur is naturally prophetically gifted.
Those with sales skills are natural evangelists,
and managers are natural teachers.
It's all there, all that we call church today in function can be reproduced in the marketplace and day to day activities.

It is developed with Spirit as the core emphasis, and then these other skills in lifestyle, business, community management, work. You see Spirit drives, mobilizes and empowers everything. So Spirit as the core creates a new dynamic that makes everything else work at a Super-Higher level, with greater depth and stamina.  


We seem to have limited the function to one structure, which has shortcomings. Although for a new vibrancy it needs to be intertwined with our existing lifestyles.

But if enhanced with the Spirit we will see the Gifts of the Spirit (1 Corinthians 12) played out as a part of our lifestyles too. A Super-natural quality will manifest itself within and through it. Gifts of Spirit will be part of every person’s weaponry for the day.

It just needs to be put in stride with the natural flow of things as we have seen in the Old Testament societies, and now, today, enhanced by the very Spirit of Jesus one with US... aka, Jesus/Spirit now embedded in a person among people connected in community, vibrant in Spirit, Love, Joy and productively living with Gifts of God.

That's what I am seeing so far. Although, it requires the connecting, collaborating insights and efforts of others to become complete. It's a mass effort, orchestrated by Spirit. The group, or rather a connected body, a network, connected in Spirit, as each works cooperatively together
Like the saying "all for one, one for all." 

Saturday, January 19, 2013

With Christ in the School of Prayer (31) ... our life is Prayer

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. Now the final chapter of  With Christ in the School of Prayer. If you read this series contemplatively, over time, it will completely overhaul your prayer life, which will be transformed into a fresh vine connecting you to God in Spirit.
The fruit will be pure and come naturally.

With Christ in the School of Prayer by Andrew Murray,
Chapter 31, a Life of Prayer, or our life is Prayer.

“The chief thing we need to know is that Jesus teaches us to pray.

Our Life is Prayer.
“Pray without ceasing.” Never stop praying.
(1 Thess. 5:17)


The words in the Epistles, which speak of continuing instant in prayer, continuing in prayer and watching in the same, of praying always in the Spirit, appear more to refer to the whole life being one of prayer.  As the soul is filling with the longing for the manifestation of God’s glory to us and in us, through us and around us, and with the confidence that He hears the prayers of His children.

What is needed to live such a life of prayer?

To forget oneself, to live for God and His kingdom among men, is the way to learn to pray without ceasing.

Not one single prayer of faith can possibly be lost that there is sometimes a needs-be for the storing up and accumulating of prayer, that persevering pray is irresistible, prayer becomes the quiet, persistent living of our life of desire and faith in the presence of our God.  

O do not let us any longer by our reasonings limit such free and sure promises of the living God, robbing them of their power, and ourselves of the wonderful confidence they are meant to inspire.  

Let us open our whole heart to God’s words of promise in all their simplicity and truth:  they will search us and humble us; they will lift us up and make us glad and strong.  And to the faith that knows it gets what it asks, prayer is not a work or a burden. It becomes a necessity and a second nature.

This union of strong desire and firm confidence again is nothing but the life of the Holy Spirit within us.  The Holy Spirit dwells in us, hides Himself in the depths of our being, and stirs the desire after the Unseen and the Divine, after God Himself.  Now in groanings that cannot be uttered, then in clear and conscious assurance; now in special distinct petitions for the deeper revelation of Christ to ourselves.

The Spirit of Christ prays in us, our prayer must be heard; because it is we who pray in the Spirit, there is need of time, and patience, and continual renewing of the prayer, until every obstacle be conquered, and the harmony between God’s Spirit and ours is perfect.

Our true aim must not be to work much and pray enough to keep the work right, but to pray much and then to work enough for the power and blessing obtained in prayer to find its way through us to men.

The chief thing we need for such a life of unceasing prayer is,
to know that
Jesus teaches us to pray.


The taking us up into the fellowship of His own prayer-life before the Father—this it is by which Jesus really teaches.

The inner sanctuary is our home, we dwell there.  And He that lives so near God, and knows that He has been brought near to bless those who are far, cannot but pray.  Christ makes us partakers with Himself of His prayer-power and prayer-life.

Yes, Christ teaches to pray by showing how He does it, by doing it in us, by leading us to do it in Him and like Him.  Christ is all, the life and the strength too for a never-ceasing prayer-life.  

The union between the Vine and the branch is in very deed a prayer-union.  The highest conformity to Christ, the most blessed participation in the glory of His heavenly life, is that we take part in His work of intercession:

 He and we live ever to pray.”



More on a life of prayer, or making your life prayer:
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/murray/prayer.XXXI.html
The Christian Classics Ethereal Library has many classic works on prayer and living a Spirit-filled life.


Wednesday, January 16, 2013

With Christ in the School of Prayer (30) ... Magnificent Ministry of Intercession

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 30, the Magnificent Ministry of Intercession:

“Every member of Jesus’ body has a right to the priesthood.  But not every one exercises it:  many are still entirely ignorant of it.

Think of what constitutes priesthood.  There is, first, the work of the priesthood.   This has two sides, one Godward, the other manward.  ‘Every priest is ordained for men in things  pertaining to God’

A priest is thus a man who does not at all live for himself.  He lives with God and for God. He lives with men and for men This is the high calling of every believer.  To be the ministers and stewards of the grace of God to all around them.  

And then there is the walk of the priesthood, in harmony with its work.  As God is holy, so the priest was to be especially holy.  This means not only separated from everything unclean, but holy unto God, being set apart and given up to God for His disposal.  The separation from the world and setting apart unto God was indicated in many ways.

The priestly tribes were to have no inheritance with the other tribes; God was to be their inheritance.  Their life was to be one of faith:  set apart unto God, they were to live on Him as well as for Him.  

in our separation from the world, we must prove that our consecration to be holy to the Lord is whole-hearted and entire.   it is this marks the true priest, the man who only lives for God and his fellow-men.

And now the way to the priesthood.  The could not enter upon his work without a special act of ordinance—his consecration. As the child of God enters more fully into what THE BLOOD and THE SPIRIT of which he already is partaker, are to him, that the power of the Holy Priesthood will work in him.  The blood will take away all sense of unworthiness; the Spirit, all sense of unfitness.

And as the blood gives the right, the Spirit gives the power, and fits for believing intercession.  He breathes into us the priestly spirit—burning love for God’s honour and the saving of souls.

The more the Christian is truly filled with the Spirit of Christ, the more spontaneous will be his giving himself up to the life of priestly intercession.  Beloved fellow-Christians!  

God needs, greatly needs, priests who can draw near to Him,
who live in His presence,
and by their intercession draw down the blessings of His grace on others. 
And the world needs, greatly needs, priests who will bear the burden of the perishing ones, and intercede on their behalf.


Let nothing keep you back from giving yourselves to be wholly and only priests—nothing else, nothing less than the priests of the Most High God.  The thought of unworthiness, of unfitness, need not keep you back.  In the Blood, the objective power of the perfect redemption works in you:  in  the Spirit its full subjective personal experience as a divine life is secured.  The Blood provides an infinite worthiness to make your prayers most acceptable:  The Spirit provides a Divine fitness, teaching you to pray just according to the will of God.

You will have power to pray the effectual prayer of the righteous man that avails much.

Come, brother, come, and be a priest, only priest, all priest.  Seek now to walk before the Lord in the full consciousness that you have been set apart for the holy Ministry of Intercession.  This is the true blessedness of conformity to the image of God’s Son.
                                               
More on our priestly position in intercession:
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/murray/prayer.XXX.html
The Christian Classics Ethereal Library has many classic works on prayer and living a Spirit-filled life.

Sunday, January 13, 2013

With Christ in the School of Prayer (29) ... Our Boldness in Prayer

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 29, Our Boldness  in Prayer:

One of the greatest hindrances to believing prayer is with many undoubtedly this:  they know not if what they ask is according to the will of God.  

As long as they are in doubt on this point, they cannot have the boldness to ask in the assurance that they certainly shall receive.


How should man be able to fathom what really may be the purpose of the all-wise God?

He says, ‘This is the boldness which we have toward Him, ‘This is the boldness, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.’  ‘If we know that He hears us whatsoever we ask, we know,’ through this faith, that we have it.

It is evident that if it be a matter of uncertainty to us whether what we ask be according to His will, we cannot have the comfort to know with certainty ‘We know that we have what  we have asked of Him.’

What we need is to see clearly is the way the Father leads His waiting, teachable child
1. It is through God’s Holy Word, taken up and kept in the heart, the life, the will; and,
2. through God’s Holy Spirit, in our dwelling and leading us, that we shall learn to know that our petitions are according to His will.


In the Word the Father has revealed in general promises the great principles of His will with His people.  The child has to take the promise and apply it to the special circumstances in His life to which it has reference.

Some are general promises we just do, such as:


‘If any man see his brother sinning a sin not unto death, he shall ask and God will give him life.’  Such is the general promise; and the believer who pleads on the ground of this promise, prays according to the will of God, and John would give him boldness to know that he has the petition for which he asks.

It is the union of the teaching of the Word and Spirit that many do not understand, and so there is a twofold difficulty in knowing what God’s will may be.  Some seek the will of God in an inner feeling or conviction, and would have the Spirit lead them without the Word.  Others seek it in the Word, without the living leading of the Holy Spirit.  The two must be united:  only in the Word, with the Spirit, can we know the will of God, and learn to pray according to it.

Let us yield our heart to have the Word of the Father dwell richly there, to have Christ’s Word abiding in us.  Let us live day by day with the anointing which teaches us all things.  Let us yield ourselves unreservedly to the Holy Spirit as He teaches us to abide in Christ, to dwell in the Father’s presence.  That we know His will in the confidence that 'this will' includes all His power, and we are confident that He hears the petitions which we ask of Him.  ‘This is the boldness which we have, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.’

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