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.
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