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.