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
In prayer we have the greatest privilege of God's Presence and interacting with God with His purpose than any other activity in our lives. E. M. Bounds in his book, the Purpose in Prayer, we learn how this is so important. Here are excerpts from chapter 7, Intimacy with God.
"Intimacy requires development. We can never know God as it is our privilege to know Him, by brief and fragmentary and unconsidered repetitions of intercessions that are requests for personal favours and nothing more. That is not the way in which we can come into communication with heaven’s King. “The goal of prayer is the ear of God,” a goal that can only be reached by patient and continued and continuous waiting upon Him, pouring out our heart to Him and permitting Him to speak to us.
"Always does not mean that we are to neglect the ordinary duties of life; what it means is that the soul which has come into intimate contact with God in the silence of the prayer-chamber is never out of conscious touch with the Father, that the heart is always going out to Him in loving communion, and that the moment the mind is released from the task upon which it is engaged it returns as naturally to God as the bird does to its nest.
"What a beautiful conception of prayer we get if we regard it in this light, if we view it as a constant fellowship, an unbroken audience with the King.
"George Muller also combined Bible study with prayer in the quiet morning hours. I began, therefore, to meditate on the New Testament early in the morning. The first thing I did, after having asked in a few words for the Lord’s blessing upon his precious Word, was to begin to meditate on the Word of God, searching as it were, into every verse to get blessing out of it; not for public ministry, preaching, but for the sake of obtaining food for my own soul.
"But we do not pray always. That is the trouble with so many of us. We need to pray much more than we do and much longer than we do.
"If you do not pray, God will probably lay you aside from your ministry, as He did me, to teach you to pray.
“I ought not to omit any of the parts of prayer—confession, adoration, thanksgiving, petition and intercession.
“Natural ability and educational advantages do not figure as factors in this matter; but a capacity for faith, the ability to pray, the power of a thorough consecration, the ability of self-littleness, an absolute losing of one’s self in God’s glory and an ever present and insatiable yearning and seeking after all the fulness of God.
"I ought to pray before seeing anyone. Often when I sleep long, or meet with others early, and then have family prayer and breakfast and forenoon callers, it is eleven or twelve o’clock before I begin secret prayer. This is a wretched system; it is unscriptural. Christ rose before day and went into a solitary place. David says, “Early will I seek Thee; Thou shalt early hear my voice.”
"But in general it is best to have at least one hour alone with God before engaging in anything else. I ought to spend the best hours of the day in communion with God. When I awake in the night, I ought to rise and pray as David and John Welch.”
The Gospel cannot live, fight, conquer without prayer—prayer unceasing, instant and ardent. Men who can set the Church ablaze for God, not in a noisy, showy way, but with an intense and quiet heat that melts and moves every thing for God.”
"And, to return to the vital point, secret praying is the test, the gauge, becomes also the measure of the devotion. The self-denial, the sacrifices which we make for our prayer-chambers, the frequency of our visits to that hallowed place, the lingering to stay, the loathness to leave, are values which we put on communion alone with God, the price we pay for the Spirit’s trysting hours of heavenly love.
For more on intimacy with God,
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/bounds/purpose.VII.html
The Christian Classics Ethereal Library features many books by the Christians who walked in the very power of the Holy Spirit throughout the ages.
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
In prayer we have the greatest privilege of God's Presence and interacting with God with His purpose than any other activity in our lives. E. M. Bounds in his book, the Purpose in Prayer, we learn how this is so important. Here are excerpts from chapter 7, Intimacy with God.
"Intimacy requires development. We can never know God as it is our privilege to know Him, by brief and fragmentary and unconsidered repetitions of intercessions that are requests for personal favours and nothing more. That is not the way in which we can come into communication with heaven’s King. “The goal of prayer is the ear of God,” a goal that can only be reached by patient and continued and continuous waiting upon Him, pouring out our heart to Him and permitting Him to speak to us.
"Always does not mean that we are to neglect the ordinary duties of life; what it means is that the soul which has come into intimate contact with God in the silence of the prayer-chamber is never out of conscious touch with the Father, that the heart is always going out to Him in loving communion, and that the moment the mind is released from the task upon which it is engaged it returns as naturally to God as the bird does to its nest.
"What a beautiful conception of prayer we get if we regard it in this light, if we view it as a constant fellowship, an unbroken audience with the King.
"George Muller also combined Bible study with prayer in the quiet morning hours. I began, therefore, to meditate on the New Testament early in the morning. The first thing I did, after having asked in a few words for the Lord’s blessing upon his precious Word, was to begin to meditate on the Word of God, searching as it were, into every verse to get blessing out of it; not for public ministry, preaching, but for the sake of obtaining food for my own soul.
"But we do not pray always. That is the trouble with so many of us. We need to pray much more than we do and much longer than we do.
"If you do not pray, God will probably lay you aside from your ministry, as He did me, to teach you to pray.
“I ought not to omit any of the parts of prayer—confession, adoration, thanksgiving, petition and intercession.
“Natural ability and educational advantages do not figure as factors in this matter; but a capacity for faith, the ability to pray, the power of a thorough consecration, the ability of self-littleness, an absolute losing of one’s self in God’s glory and an ever present and insatiable yearning and seeking after all the fulness of God.
"I ought to pray before seeing anyone. Often when I sleep long, or meet with others early, and then have family prayer and breakfast and forenoon callers, it is eleven or twelve o’clock before I begin secret prayer. This is a wretched system; it is unscriptural. Christ rose before day and went into a solitary place. David says, “Early will I seek Thee; Thou shalt early hear my voice.”
"But in general it is best to have at least one hour alone with God before engaging in anything else. I ought to spend the best hours of the day in communion with God. When I awake in the night, I ought to rise and pray as David and John Welch.”
The Gospel cannot live, fight, conquer without prayer—prayer unceasing, instant and ardent. Men who can set the Church ablaze for God, not in a noisy, showy way, but with an intense and quiet heat that melts and moves every thing for God.”
"And, to return to the vital point, secret praying is the test, the gauge, becomes also the measure of the devotion. The self-denial, the sacrifices which we make for our prayer-chambers, the frequency of our visits to that hallowed place, the lingering to stay, the loathness to leave, are values which we put on communion alone with God, the price we pay for the Spirit’s trysting hours of heavenly love.
For more on intimacy with God,
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/bounds/purpose.VII.html
The Christian Classics Ethereal Library features many books by the Christians who walked in the very power of the Holy Spirit throughout the ages.
No comments:
Post a Comment