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 6, the Infinite Fatherliness of God.
“Live as a child of God, then you will be able to pray as a child, and as a child you will most assuredly be heard.
And
what is the true child-life? The answer can be found in any home. The
child that by preference forsakes the father’s house, that finds no
pleasure in the presence and love and obedience of the father, and still
thinks to ask and obtain what he will, will surely be disappointed. On
the contrary, he to whom the intercourse and will and honor and love
of the father are the joy of his life, will find that it is the father’s
joy to grant his requests. Scripture says, ‘As many as are led
by the Spirit of God, they are the children of God:’ He that gives
himself to be led by the Spirit in his life, will be led by Him in his
prayers, too.
The
Lord does not demand of us a perfect fulfillment of the law; no, but
only the childlike and whole-hearted surrender to live as a child with
Him in obedience and truth. Nothing more. But also, nothing less. The
Father must have the whole heart. When this is given, and He sees the
child with honest purpose and steady will seeking in everything to be
and live as a child, then our prayer will count with Him as the prayer
of a child.
It
is not enough for us to know that God is a Father: He would have us
take time to come under the full impression of what that name implies.
We must take the best earthly father we know; we must think of the
tenderness and love with which he regards the request of his child, the
love and joy with which he grants every reasonable desire; we must then,
as we think in adoring worship of the infinite Love and Fatherliness of
God, consider with how much more tenderness and joy He sees us come to Him, and gives us what we ask for.
But
he who lets God be Father always and in everything, who would fain live
his whole life in the Father’s presence and love, who allows God in all
the greatness of His love to be a Father to him, oh! he will experience
most gloriously that a life in God’s infinite Fatherliness and
continual answers to prayer are inseparable.”
More on the Infinite Fatherliness of God:
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/murray/prayer.VI.html
The Christian Classics Ethereal Library has many classic works on prayer and living a Spirit-filled 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
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 5, the Certain Answer to Prayer.
“Jesus gives as ground for such assurance the law of the kingdom: ‘He that asks, receives; he that seeks, finds; to him that knocks, it shall be opened.’
He wants to impress
deep on our minds this one truth, that we may and must most confidently
expect an answer to our prayer.
In the three words the Lord uses, ask, seek, knock,
first, ASK, refers to the gifts we pray for. But I may ask and receive
the gift without the Giver. SEEK is the word Scripture uses of God
Himself; Christ assures me that I can find Himself. But it is not
enough to find God in time of need, without coming to abiding
fellowship: KNOCK speaks of admission to dwell with Him and in Him.
One
thing is sure: the Lord does want us to count most certainly on it
that asking, seeking, knocking, cannot be in vain: receiving an answer,
finding God, the opened heart and home of God, are the certain fruit of
prayer.
According
to this teaching of the Master, prayer consists of two parts, has two
sides, a human and a Divine. The human is the asking, the Divine is the
giving. If no answer comes, there must be something in the prayer
that is not as God would have it, childlike and believing; we must seek
for grace to pray so that the answer may come.
There
may be cases in which the answer is a refusal, because the request is
not according to God’s Word, as when Moses asked to enter Canaan. But
still, there was an answer: God did not leave His servant in
uncertainty as to His will. God will teach those who are teachable and
give Him time, by His Word and Spirit, whether their request be
according to His will or not. Let us withdraw the request, if it be not
according to God’s mind, or persevere till the answer come. Prayer is
appointed to obtain the answer.
If
we take His words in simplicity, and trust Him by His Spirit to make
them within us life and power, they will so enter into our inner being,
that the spiritual Divine reality of the truth they contain will indeed
take possession of us, and we shall not rest content until every
petition we offer is borne heavenward on Jesus’ own words: ‘Ask, and it
shall be given you.’
Let us take time, as often as we pray, to listen to His voice: Every one that asks, receives.
More on the Certain Answers to Prayer
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/murray/prayer.V.html
The Christian Classics Ethereal Library has many classic works on prayer and living a Spirit-filled 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
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 4, The Model Prayer.
"Every
teacher knows the power of example. He not only tells the child what
to do and how to do it, but shows him how it really can be done. We
have in them a form of prayer in which there breathe the freshness and
fulness of the Eternal Life. So simple that the child can lisp it, so
divinely rich that it comprehends all that God can give.
A form of
prayer that becomes the model and inspiration for all other prayer.
‘Our Father which art in heaven!’
None of the saints had in Scripture ever ventured to address God as
their Father. The invocation places us at once in the centre of the
wonderful revelation the Son came to make of His Father as our Father
too. It is in the personal relation to the living God, and the personal
conscious fellowship of love with Himself, that prayer begins. It is in
the knowledge of God’s Fatherliness. In the infinite tenderness and
pity and patience of the infinite Father, in His loving readiness to
hear and to help, the life of prayer has its joy.
‘Hallowed be Thy name.’ There is something here that strikes us at once. First, Thy name, Thy kingdom, Thy will; then, give us, forgive us, lead us, deliver us.
In true worship the Father must be first, must be all. The sooner I
learn to forget myself in the desire that HE may be glorified, the
richer will the blessing be that prayer will bring to myself. This must
influence all our prayer.
There are two sorts of prayer: personal and
intercessory. The latter ordinarily occupies the lesser part of our
time and energy. This may not be. Christ has opened the school of
prayer specially to train intercessors for the great work of bringing
down, by their faith and prayer, the blessings of His work and love on
the world around.
The
little child may ask of the father only what it needs for itself; and
yet it soon learns to say, Give some for sister too. And Jesus would
train us to the blessed life of consecration and service, in which our
interests are all subordinate to the Name, and the Kingdom, and the Will
of the Father. O let us live for this.
‘Hallowed be Thy name.’ What name? This new name of Father.
It is only when we yield ourselves to be led of Him, that the name will be hallowed in our prayers and our lives.
‘Thy kingdom come.’
The Father is a King and has a kingdom. The coming of the kingdom is
the one great event on which the revelation of the Father’s glory, the
blessedness of His children, the salvation of the world depends. Our prayers cause God's Kingdom to form around us.
‘Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth.’
The Master teaches the child to ask that the will may be done on earth
just as in heaven: in the spirit of adoring submission and ready
obedience. As the will is done, the kingdom of heaven comes into the
heart. The surrender to, and the prayer for a life of heaven-like
obedience, is the spirit of childlike prayer.
‘Give us this day our daily bread.’
A master cares for the food of his servant, a general of his soldiers,
a father of his child. And will not the Father in heaven care for the
child who has in prayer given himself up to His interests? Consecration
to God and His will gives wonderful liberty in prayer for temporal
things: the whole earthly life is given to the Father’s loving care.
‘And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.’
We are children but sinners too; our right of access to the Father’s
presence we owe to the precious blood and the forgiveness it has won for
us. Let us beware of the prayer for forgiveness becoming a formality:
only what is sincerely confessed is really forgiven. Such forgiveness,
as a living experience, is impossible without a forgiving spirit to
others: as forgiven expresses the heavenward, so forgiving the earthward, relation of God’s child.
‘And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.’
Our daily bread, the pardon of our sins, and then our being kept from
all sin and the power of the evil one, in these three petitions all our
personal need is comprehended. The believing prayer in everything to be
kept by the power of the indwelling Spirit from the power of the evil
one.
Children
of God! it is thus Jesus would have us to pray to the Father in heaven.
O let His Name, and Kingdom, and Will, have the first place in our
love; His providing, and pardoning, and keeping love will be our sure
portion. We shall understand how Father and child, the Thine and the Our, are all one.
‘FOR THINE IS THE KINGDOM, AND THE POWER, AND THE GLORY, FOR EVER, AMEN.’ Son of the Father, teach us to pray, ‘OUR FATHER.’
More on the Model of Prayer
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/murray/prayer.IV.html
The Christian Classics Ethereal Library has many classic works on prayer and living a Spirit-filled 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
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 3, Alone with God.
"It
came as a matter of course that the revelation of prayer and the
prayer-life was a part of His teaching concerning the New Kingdom He
came to set up. Moses gave neither command nor regulation with regard
to prayer: even the prophets say little directly of the duty of prayer;
it is Christ who teaches to pray.
The
first thing the Lord teaches His disciples is that they must have a
secret place for prayer; every one must have some solitary spot where he
can be alone with his God.
He
wants each one to choose for himself the fixed spot where He can daily
meet him. That inner chamber, that solitary place, is Jesus’
schoolroom. That spot may be anywhere; that spot may change from day to
day if we have to change our abode; but that secret place there must
be, with the quiet time in which the pupil places himself in the
Master’s presence, to be by Him prepared to worship the Father.
First, ‘Pray to thy Father which is in secret.’ God
is a God who hides Himself to the carnal eye. As long as in our
worship of God we are chiefly occupied with our own thoughts and
exercises, we shall not meet Him who is a Spirit, the unseen One. But
to the man who withdraws himself from all that is of the world and man,
and prepares to wait upon God alone, the Father will reveal Himself. As
he forsakes and gives up and shuts out the world, and the life of the
world, and surrenders himself to be led of Christ into the secret of
God’s presence, the light of the Father’s love will rise upon him. The
secrecy of the inner chamber and the closed door, the entire separation
from all around us, is an image of, and so a help to that inner
spiritual sanctuary, the secret of God’s tabernacle, within the veil,
where our spirit truly comes into contact with the Invisible One.
He
tells you that when you go to private prayer your first thought must
be: The Father is in secret, the Father waits for me there. Do not be
thinking of how little you have to bring God, but of how much He wants
to give you.
‘And thy Father, which sees in secret, will reward you.’
Our
Lord would thus teach us that as infinite Fatherliness and Faithfulness
is that with which God meets us in secret, so on our part there should
be the childlike simplicity of faith, the confidence that our prayer
does bring down a blessing. ‘He that comes to God must believe that He is a rewarder of them that seek Him.’
‘Your Father knows what things you have need of before you ask Him.’
At first sight it might appear as if this thought made prayer less
needful: God knows far better than we do what we need. My Father knows I
need it and must have it. And if there be any delay in the answer, it
will teach us in quiet perseverance to hold on:
We
are in danger of being so occupied with our fervent, urgent petitions,
as to forget that the Father knows and hears, let us hold still and just
quietly say: My Father sees, my Father hears, my Father knows; it will
help our faith to take the answer, and to say: We know that we have
the petitions we have asked of Him.
Dwell much in the inner chamber, with the door shut—shut in from men,
shut up with God; it is there the Father waits for you, it is there Jesus
will teach you to pray. To be alone in secret with THE FATHER: this be
your highest joy. To be assured that THE FATHER will openly reward the
secret prayer, so that it cannot remain unblessed: this be your
strength day by day. And to know that THE FATHER knows that you need
what you ask; this be your liberty to bring every need, in the
assurance that your God will supply it according to His riches in Glory
in Christ Jesus.
More on Alone with God at
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/murray/prayer.III.html
The Christian Classic Ethereal Library has many classic works on prayer and living a Spirit-filled 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
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 2, The True Worshipers.
"The Father seeks worshipers... our worship satisfies His loving heart and is a joy to Him. He seeks true worshipers, but finds many not such as He would have them. True worship is that which is in spirit and truth.
To
the woman of Samaria our Lord spoke of a threefold worship. There is
first, the ignorant worship of the Samaritans: ‘Ye worship that which
ye know not.’ The second, the intelligent worship of the Jew, having
the true knowledge of God: ‘We worship that which we know; for salvation
is of the Jews.’ And then the new, the spiritual worship which He
Himself has come to introduce: ‘The hour is coming, and is now, when
the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth.’
There
were among them godly men, who called upon God with their whole heart.
And yet not ‘in spirit and truth,’ in the full meaning of the words.
Jesus says, ‘The hour is coming, and now is;’ it is only in and through Him that the worship of God will be in spirit and truth.
Among
Christians one still finds the three classes of worshipers. They pray
earnestly, and yet receive but little. Others there are, who have more
correct knowledge, who try to pray with all their mind and heart, and
often pray most earnestly, and yet do not attain to the full blessedness
of worship in spirit and truth. It is into this third class we must
ask our Lord Jesus to take us; we must be taught of Him how to worship
in spirit and truth. This alone is spiritual worship; this makes us
worshipers such as the Father seeks.
There
must be harmony between God and His worshipers. The man who would
truly worship God, would find and know and possess and enjoy God, must
be in harmony with Him, must have the capacity for receiving Him.
Because God is Spirit, we must worship in spirit. As God is, so His worshiper.
And
what does this mean? Worship is no longer to be limited to a certain
place. As God is Spirit, not bound by space or time, but in His infinite
perfection always and everywhere the same, so His worship would
henceforth no longer be confined by place or form, but spiritual as God
Himself is spiritual. The second thought that comes to us is that the
worship in the spirit must come from God Himself. God is Spirit: He
alone has Spirit to give. It was when Jesus had made an end of sin, and
entering into the Holiest of all with His blood, had there on our behalf
received the Holy Spirit.
The worship in spirit
is only possible to those to whom the Son has revealed the Father, and
who have received the spirit of Sonship. It is only Christ who opens
the way and teaches the worship in spirit.
And so worship in spirit is worship in truth;
actual living fellowship with God, a real correspondence and harmony
between the Father, who is a Spirit, and the child praying in the
spirit.
Pentecost
was needed to reveal its full meaning. We are hardly prepared at our
first entrance into the school of prayer to grasp such teaching. We are
carnal and cannot bring God the worship He seeks.
To have Christ the Son, and the Spirit of the Son, dwelling within us, and revealing the Father, this makes us true, spiritual worshipers."
More on The True Worshipers at
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/murray/prayer.II_1.html
The Christian Classic Ethereal Library has many classic works on prayer and living a Spirit-filled 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
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 1, The Only Teacher.
"They
had learned to believe in Him as a Master in the art of prayer—none
could pray like Him. And so they came to Him with the request, ‘Lord,
teach us to pray.’ He will be delighted to take us up into closer
fellowship with Himself, and teach us to pray even as He prays.
"Shall
we not go to the Blessed Master and ask Him to enroll our names too anew
in that school which He always keeps open for those who long to
continue their studies in the Divine art of prayer and intercession? It
is fellowship with the Unseen and Most Holy One. The powers of the
eternal world have been placed at its disposal. It is the very essence
of true religion, the channel of all blessings, the secret of power and
life.
"We
hear continually even in these days what glorious tokens of Thy power
Thou dost still give to those who trust Thee fully. Lord! these all are
men of like passions with ourselves; teach us to pray so too. The promises are for us, the powers and gifts of the heavenly world are for us. O teach us to pray so that we may receive abundantly. We offer ourselves as learners; we would indeed be taught of Thee. ‘Lord, teach us to pray.’
"All
this must be learned. It can only be learned in the school of much
prayer, for practice makes perfect. Amid the painful consciousness of
ignorance and unworthiness, in the struggle between believing and
doubting, the heavenly art of effectual prayer is learned. Their
education in the school of prayer shall be carried on to perfection. We
may be sure we shall be taught, we shall learn to pray in power. Yes,
we may depend upon it, He teaches to pray.
"He
knows how to teach. Now by the urgency of felt need, then by the
confidence with which joy inspires. Here by the teaching of the Word,
there by the testimony of another believer who knows what it is to have
prayer heard. By His Holy Spirit, He has access to our heart, and
teaches us to pray by showing us the sin that hinders the prayer, or
giving us the assurance that we please God. He teaches, by giving not
only thoughts of what to ask or how to ask, but by breathing within us
the very spirit of prayer, by living within us as the Great Intercessor.
We may indeed and most joyfully say, ‘Who teaches like Him?’ Jesus
never taught His disciples how to preach, only how to pray. He did not
speak much of what was needed to preach well, but much of praying well.
To know how to speak to God is more than knowing how to speak to man.
Not power with men, but power with God is the first thing. Jesus loves
to teach us how to pray.
"Let us take time not only to meditate, but to pray, to tarry at the foot of the throne, and be trained to the work of intercession. He will breathe His own life, which is all prayer, into us."
More on The Only Teacher at
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/murray/prayer.I_1.html
The Christian Classic Ethereal Library has many classic works on prayer and living a Spirit-filled 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
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 13, Christ our example in prayer. This is the final chapter of E. M. Bounds book on Purpose in Prayer.
"He
taught not only that men must pray, but that they must persevere in
prayer. He taught in command and precept the idea of energy and
earnestness in praying. The pleading soul must be aroused to effort by
God’s silence. Denial, instead of abating or abashing, must arouse its
latent energies and kindle anew its highest ardor.
Why
does Christ on two distinct occasions go over the same strong promises,
iterations, and reiterations in regard to the certainty of prayer being
answered? Because He knew that there would be delay in many an answer
which would call for importunate pressing, and that if our faith did not
have the strongest assurance of God’s willingness to answer, delay
would break it down.
He
then urges to importunity, and that every unanswered prayer, instead of
abating our pressure should only increase intensity and energy. If
asking does not get, let asking pass into the settled attitude and
spirit of seeking. If seeking does not secure the answer, let seeking
pass on to the more energetic and clamorous plea of knocking. We must
persevere till we get it. No failure here if our faith does not break
down.
Love
is the supreme condition of prayer, a life inspired by love. The 13th
chapter of 1st Corinthians is the law of prayer as well as the law of
love. The law of love is the law of prayer, and to master this chapter
from the epistle of St. Patti is to learn the first and fullest
condition of prayer.
Christ taught us also to approach the Father in His name. That is our passport.
How
wide and comprehensive is that “whatsoever.” There is no limit to the
power of that name. “Whatsoever ye shall ask.” That is the Divine
declaration, and it opens up to every praying child a vista of infinite
resource and possibility.
The
one secret is prayer. The place of revealing and of equipment, of grace
and of power, is the prayer-chamber, and as we meet there with God we
shall not only win our triumphs but we shall also grow in the likeness
of our Lord and become His living witnesses to men.
Without
prayer the Christian life, robbed of its sweetness and its beauty,
becomes cold and formal and dead; but rooted in the secret place where
God meets and walks and talks with His own, it grows into such a
testimony of Divine power that all men will feel its influence and be
touched by the warmth of its love. Thus, resembling our Lord and Master,
we shall be used for the glory of God and the salvation of our fellow
men.
And that, surely is the purpose of all real prayer and the end of all true service."
For more on Christ our example in prayer ...
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/bounds/purpose.XIII.html
This concludes the summary of Purpose in Prayer by E. M. Bounds. Please consider reading the whole book posted at CCEL.
The
Christian Classics Ethereal Library features many books by the
Christians who walked in the very power of the Holy Spirit throughout
the ages.
