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.
No comments:
Post a Comment