Of all the promises connected with the command, 'ABIDE IN ME,' there
is none higher, and none that sooner brings the confession, 'Not that I
have already attained, or am already made perfect,' than this: 'If ye abide
in me, ask whatsoever ye will, and it shall be done unto you.' Power with
God is the highest attainment of the life of full abiding.
And of all the traits of a life LIKE CHRIST there is none higher and
more glorious than conformity to Him in the work that now engages Him without
ceasing in the Father's presence--His all-prevailing intercession. The
more we abide in Him, and grow unto His likeness, will His priestly life
work in us mightily, and our life become what His is, a life that ever
pleads and prevails for men.
'Thou hast made us kings and priests unto God.' Both in the king and
the priest the chief thing is power, influence, blessing. In the king it
is the power coming downward; in the priest, the power rising upward, prevailing
with God. In our blessed Priest-King, Jesus Christ, the kingly power is
founded on the priestly 'He is able to save to the uttermost, because He
ever liveth to make intercession.' In us, His priests and kings, it is
no otherwise: it is in intercession that the Church is to find and wield
its highest power, that each member of the Church is to prove his descent
from Israel, who as a prince had power with God and with men, and prevailed.
It is under a deep impression that the place and power of prayer in
the Christian life is too little understood, that this book has been written.
I feel sure that as long as we look on prayer chiefly as the means of maintaining
our own Christian life, we shall not know fully what it is meant to be.
But when we learn to regard it as the highest part of the work entrusted
to us, the root and strength of all other work, we shall see that there
is nothing that we so need to study and practise as the art of praying
aright. If I have at all succeeded in pointing out the progressive teaching
of our Lord in regard to prayer, and the distinct reference the wonderful
promises of the last night (John xiv. 16) have to the works we are to do
in His Name, to the greater works, and to the bearing much fruit, we shall
all admit that it is only when the Church gives herself up to this holy
work of intercession that we can expect the power of Christ to manifest
itself in her behalf. It is my prayer that God may use this little book
to make clearer to some of His children the wonderful place of power and
influence which He is waiting for them to occupy, and for which a weary
world is waiting too.
In connection with this there is another truth that has come to me with
wonderful clearness as I studied the teaching of Jesus on prayer. It is
this: that the Father waits to hear every prayer of faith, to give us whatsoever
we will, and whatsoever we ask in Jesus' name. We have become so accustomed
to limit the wonderful love and the large promises of our God, that we
cannot read the simplest and clearest statements of our Lord without the
qualifying clauses by which we guard and expound them. If there is one
thing I think the Church needs to learn, it is that God means prayer to
have an answer, and that it hath not entered into the heart of man to conceive
what God will do for His child who gives himself to believe that his prayer
will be heard. God hears prayer; this is a truth universally admitted,
but of which very few understand the meaning, or experience the power.
If what I have written stir my reader to go to the Master's words, and
take His wondrous promises simply and literally as they stand, my object
has been attained.
And then just one thing more. Thousands have in these last years found
an unspeakable blessing in learning how completely Christ is our life,
and how He undertakes to be and to do all in us that we need. I know not
if we have yet learned to apply this truth to our prayer-life. Many complain
that they have not the power to pray in faith, to pray the effectual prayer
that availeth much. The message I would fain bring them is that the blessed
Jesus is waiting, is longing, to teach them this. Christ is our life: in
heaven He ever liveth to pray; His life in us is an ever-praying life,
if we will but trust Him for it. Christ teaches us to pray not only by
example, by instruction, by command, by promises, but by showing us HIMSELF,
the ever-living Intercessor, as our Life. It is when we believe this, and
go and abide in Him for our prayer-life too, that our fears of not being
able to pray aright will vanish, and we shall joyfully and triumphantly
trust our Lord to teach us to pray, to be Himself the life and the power
of our prayer. May God open our eyes to see what the holy ministry of intercession
is to which, as His royal priesthood, we have been set apart. May He give
us a large and strong heart to believe what mighty influence our prayers
can exert. And may all fear as to our being able to fulfil our vocation
vanish as we see Jesus, living ever to pray, living in us to pray, and
standing surety for our prayer-life.
ANDREW MURRAY
WELLINGTON, 28th October 1895
Table of Contents
PREFACE.
FIRST LESSON.
'Lord, teach us to pray;'
Or, The Only Teacher.
'And it came to pass, as He was praying in a certain place, that when
He ceased, one of His disciples said to Him, Lord, teach us to pray.'--LUKE
xi. 1.
THE disciples had been with Christ, and seen Him pray. They had learnt
to understand something of the connection between His wondrous life in
public, and His secret life of prayer. They had learnt 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.' And in after years
they would have told us that there were few things more wonderful or blessed
that He taught them than His lessons on prayer.
And now still it comes to pass, as He is praying in a certain place,
that disciples who see Him thus engaged feel the need of repeating the
same request, 'Lord, teach us to pray.' As we grow in the Christian life,
the thought and the faith of the Beloved Master in His never-failing intercession
becomes ever more precious, and the hope of being Like Christ in His intercession
gains an attractiveness before unknown. And as we see Him pray, and remember
that there is none who can pray like Him, and none who can teach like Him,
we feel the petition of the disciples, 'Lord, teach us to pray,' is just
what we need. And as we think how all He is and has, how He Himself is
our very own, how He is Himself our life, we feel assured that we have
but to ask, and He will be delighted to take us up into closer fellowship
with Himself, and teach us to pray even as He prays.
Come, my brothers! Shall we not go to the Blessed Master and ask Him
to enrol 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? Yes, let us this very day say to the Master, as they did
of old, 'Lord, teach us to pray.' As we meditate, we shall find each word
of the petition we bring to be full of meaning.
'Lord, teach us to pray.' Yes, to pray. This is what we need to be taught.
Though in its beginnings prayer is so simple that the feeblest child can
pray, yet it is at the same time the highest and holiest work to which
man can rise. 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. Not only for ourselves, but for others, for the Church, for the world,
it is to prayer that God has given the right to take hold of Him and His
strength. It is on prayer that the promises wait for their fulfilment,
the kingdom for its coming, the glory of God for its full revelation. And
for this blessed work, how slothful and unfit we are. It is only the Spirit
of God can enable us to do it aright. How speedily we are deceived into
a resting in the form, while the power is wanting. Our early training,
the teaching of the Church, the influence of habit, the stirring of the
emotions--how easily these lead to prayer which has no spiritual power,
and avails but little. True prayer, that takes hold of God's strength,
that availeth much, to which the gates of heaven are really opened wide--who
would not cry, Oh for some one to teach me thus to pray?
Jesus has opened a school, in which He trains His redeemed ones, who
specially desire it, to have power in prayer. Shall we not enter it with
the petition, Lord! it is just this we need to be taught! O teach us to
pray.
'Lord, teach us to pray.' Yes, us, Lord. We have read in They Word with
what power Thy believing people of old used to pray, and what mighty wonders
were done in answer to their prayers. And if this took place under the
Old Covenant, in the time of preparation, how much more wilt Thou not now,
in these days of fulfilment, give Thy people this sure sign of Thy presence
in their midst. We have heard the promises given to Thine apostles of the
power of prayer in Thy name, and have seen how gloriously they experienced
their truth: we know for certain, they can become true to us too. 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. To us too Thou hast entrusted Thy
work, on our prayer too the coming of Thy kingdom depends, in our prayer
too Thou canst glorify Thy name; 'Lord teach us to pray.' Yes, us, Lord;
we offer ourselves as learners; we would indeed be taught of Thee. 'Lord,
teach us to pray.'
'Lord, teach us to pray.' Yes, we feel the need now of being taught
to pray. At first there is no work appears so simple; later on, none that
is more difficult; and the confession is forced from us: We know not how
to pray as we ought. It is true we have God's Word, with its clear and
sure promises; but sin has so darkened our mind, that we know not always
how to apply the word. In spiritual things we do not always seek the most
needful things, or fail in praying according to the law of the sanctuary.
In temporal things we are still less able to avail ourselves of the wonderful
liberty our Father has given us to ask what we need. And even when we know
what to ask, how much there is still needed to make prayer acceptable.
It must be to the glory of God, in full surrender to His will, in full
assurance of faith, in the name of Jesus, and with a perseverance that,
if need be, refuses to be denied. 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
learnt. Because, even when we do not remember it, there is One, the Beginner
and Finisher of faith and prayer, who watches over our praying, and sees
to it that in all who trust Him for it their education in the school of
prayer shall be carried on to perfection. Let but the deep undertone of
all our prayer be the teachableness that comes from a sense of ignorance,
and from faith in Him as a perfect teacher, and 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.
'Lord, teach us to pray.' None can teach like Jesus, none but Jesus;
therefore we call on Him, 'LORD, teach us to pray.' A pupil needs a teacher,
who knows his work, who has the gift of teaching, who in patience and love
will descend to the pupil's needs. Blessed be God! Jesus is all this and
much more. He knows what prayer is. It is Jesus, praying Himself, who teaches
to pray. He knows what prayer is. He learned it amid the trials and tears
of His earthly life. In heaven it is still His beloved work: His life there
is prayer. Nothing delights Him more than to find those whom He can take
with Him into the Father's presence, whom He can clothe with power to pray
down God's blessing on those around them, whom He can train to be His fellow-workers
in the intercession by which the kingdom is to be revealed on earth. 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 teacheth 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.
What think you, my beloved fellow-disciples! would it not be just what
we need, to ask the Master for a month to give us a course of special lessons
on the art of prayer? As we meditate on the words He spake on earth, let
us yield ourselves to His teaching in the fullest confidence that, with
such a teacher, we shall make progress. 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. Let us do so in the assurance that amidst our stammerings
and fears He is carrying on His work most beautifully. He will breathe
His own life, which is all prayer, into us. As He makes us partakers of
His righteousness and His life, He will of His intercession. too. As the
members of His body, as a holy priesthood, we shall take part in His priestly
work of pleading and prevailing with God for men. Yes, let us most joyfully
say, ignorant and feeble though we be, 'Lord, teach us to pray.'
'LORD, TEACH US TO PRAY.'
Blessed Lord! who ever livest to pray, Thou canst teach me too to pray,
me too to live ever to pray. In this Thou lovest to make me share Thy glory
in heaven, that I should pray without ceasing, and ever stand as a priest
in the presence of my God.
Lord Jesus! I ask Thee this day to enrol my name among those who confess
that they know not how to pray as they ought, and specially ask Thee for
a course of teaching in prayer. Lord! teach me to tarry with Thee in the
school, and give Thee time to train me. May a deep sense of my ignorance,
of the wonderful privilege and power of prayer, of the need of the Holy
Spirit as the Spirit of prayer, lead me to cast away my thoughts of what
I think I know, and make me kneel before Thee in true teachableness and
poverty of spirit.
And fill me, Lord, with the confidence that with such a teacher as Thou
art I shall learn to pray. In the assurance that I have as my teacher,
Jesus who is ever praying to the Father, and by His prayer rules the destinies
of His Church and the world, I will not be afraid. As much as I need to
know of the mysteries of the prayer-world, Thou wilt unfold for me. And
when I may not know, Thou wilt teach me to be strong in faith, giving glory
to God.
Blessed Lord! Thou wilt not put to shame Thy scholar who trusts Thee,
nor, by Thy grace, would he Thee either. Amen.
'In spirit and truth.'
Or, The True Worshippers.
'The hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship
the Father in spirit and truth: for such doth the Father seek to be His
worshippers. God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him
in spirit and truth.'--JOHN iv. 23, 24.
THESE words of Jesus to the woman of Samaria are His first recorded
teaching on the subject of prayer. They give us some wonderful first glimpses
into the world of prayer. The Father seeks worshippers: our worship satisfies
His loving heart and is a joy to Him. He seeks true worshippers, but finds
many not such as He would have them. True worship is that which is in spirit
and truth. The Son has come to open the way for this worship in spirit
and in truth, and teach it us. And so one of our first lessons in the school
of prayer must be to understand what it is to pray in spirit and in truth,
and to know how we can attain to it.
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 worshippers
shall worship the Father in spirit and truth.' From the connection it is
evident that the words 'in spirit and truth' do not mean, as if often thought,
earnestly, from the heart, in sincerity. The Samaritans had the five books
of Moses and some knowledge of God; there was doubtless more than one among
them who honestly and earnestly sought God in prayer. The Jews had the
true full revelation of God in His word, as thus far given; 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 worshippers. Some
who in their ignorance hardly know what they ask: 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 worshippers such as the Father seeks.
In prayer everything will depend on our understanding well and practising
the worship in spirit and truth.
'God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him, must worship Him in spirit
and truth.' The first thought suggested here by the Master is that there
must be harmony between God and His worshippers; such as God is, must His
worship be. This is according to a principle which prevails throughout
the universe: we look for correspondence between an object and the organ
to which it reveals or yields itself. The eye has an inner fitness for
the light, the ear for sound. 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 worshipper.
And what does this mean? The woman had asked our Lord whether Samaria
or Jerusalem was the true place of worship. He answers that henceforth
worship is no longer to be limited to a certain place: 'Woman, believe
Me, the hour cometh, when neither in this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, shall
ye worship the Father.' 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. A lesson of deep importance. How much our
Christianity suffers from this, that it is confined to certain times and
places. A man, who seeks to pray earnestly in the church or in the closet,
spends the greater part of the week or the day in a spirit entirely at
variance with that in which he prayed. His worship was the work of a fixed
place or hour, not of his whole being. God is a Spirit: He is the Everlasting
and Unchangeable One; what He is, He is always and in truth. Our worship
must even so be in spirit and truth: His worship must be the spirit of
our life; our life must be worship in spirit as God is Spirit.
'God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit
and truth.' 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 for this He sent His Son, to fit us for such spiritual
worship, by giving us the Holy Spirit. It is of His own work that Jesus
speaks when He says twice, 'The hour cometh,' and then adds, 'and is now.'
He came to baptize with the Holy Spirit; the Spirit could not stream forth
till He was glorified (John i. 33, vii. 37, 38, xvi. 7). It was when He
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 (Acts ii. 33), that He
could send Him down to us as the Spirit of the Father. It was when Christ
had redeemed us, and we in Him had received the position of children, that
the Father sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts to cry, 'Abba,
Father.' The worship in spirit is the worship of the Father in the Spirit
of Christ , the Spirit of Sonship.
This is the reason why Jesus here uses the name of Father. We never
find one of the Old Testament saints personally appropriate the name of
child or call God his Father. The worship of the Father is only possible
to those to whom the Spirit of the Son has been given. 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 in truth. That does not only mean, in sincerity. Nor does it only
signify, in accordance with the truth of God's Word. The expression is
one of deep and Divine meaning. Jesus is 'the only-begotten of the Father,
full of grace and truth.' 'The law was given by Moses; grace and truth
came by Jesus Christ.' Jesus says, 'I am the truth and the life.' In the
Old Testament all was shadow and promise; Jesus brought and gives the reality,
the substance, of things hoped for. In Him the blessings and powers of
the eternal life are our actual possession and experience. Jesus is full
of grace and truth; the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth; through Him
the grace that is in Jesus is ours in deed and truth, a positive communication
out of the Divine life. 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.
What Jesus said to the woman of Samaria, she could not at once understand.
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 shall understand it better later on. Let us only begin and take the
lesson as He gives it. We are carnal and cannot bring God the worship He
seeks. But Jesus came to give the Spirit: He has given Him to us. Let the
disposition in which we set ourselves to pray be what Christ's words have
taught us. Let there be the deep confession of our inability to bring God
the worship that is pleasing to Him; the childlike teachableness that waits
on Him to instruct us; the simple faith that yields itself to the breathing
of the Spirit. Above all, let us hold fast the blessed truth--we shall
find that the Lord has more to say to us about it--that the knowledge of
the Fatherhood of God, the revelation of His infinite Fatherliness in our
hearts, the faith in the infinite love that gives us His Son and His Spirit
to make us children, is indeed the secret of prayer in spirit and truth.
This is the new and living way Christ opened up for us. To have Christ
the Son, and the Spirit of the Son, dwelling within us, and revealing the
Father, this makes us true, spiritual worshippers.
'LORD, TEACH US TO PRAY.'
Blessed Lord! I adore the love with which Thou didst teach a woman,
who had refused Thee a cup of water, what the worship of God must be. I
rejoice in the assurance that Thou wilt no less now instruct Thy disciple,
who comes to Thee with a heart that longs to pray in spirit and in truth.
O my Holy Master! do teach me this blessed secret.
Teach me that the worship in spirit and truth is not of man, but only
comes from Thee; that it is not only a thing of times and seasons, but
the outflowing of a life in Thee. Teach me to draw near to God in prayer
under the deep impression of my ignorance and my having nothing in myself
to offer Him, and at the same time of the provision Thou, my Saviour, makest
for the Spirit's breathing in my childlike stammerings. I do bless Thee
that in Thee I am a child, and have a child's liberty of access; that in
Thee I have the spirit of Sonship and of worship in truth. Teach me, above
all, Blessed Son of the Father, how it is the revelation of the Father
that gives confidence in prayer; and let the infinite Fatherliness of God's
Heart be my joy and strength for a life of prayer and of worship. Amen.
'Pray to thy Father, which is in secret; '
Or, Alone with God.
'But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thine inner chamber, and having
shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret, and thy Father which
seeth in secret shall recompense thee'--MATT. vi. 6.
AFTER Jesus had called His first disciples, He gave them their first
public teaching in the Sermon on the Mount. He there expounded to them
the kingdom of God, its laws and its life. In that kingdom God is not only
King, but Father, He not only gives all, but is Himself all. In the knowledge
and fellowship of Him alone is its blessedness. Hence 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.
And 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. Every teacher must have a schoolroom.
We have learnt to know and accept Jesus as our only teacher in the school
of prayer. He has already taught us at Samaria that worship is no longer
confined to times and places; that worship, spiritual true worship, is
a thing of the spirit and the life; the whole man must in his whole life
be worship in spirit and truth. And yet 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. There alone, but there most surely, Jesus comes to us to teach
us to pray.
A teacher is always anxious that his schoolroom should be bright and
attractive, filled with the light and air of heaven, a place where pupils
long to come, and love to stay. In His first words on prayer in the Sermon
on the Mount, Jesus seeks to set the inner chamber before us in its most
attractive light. If we listen carefully, we soon notice what the chief
thing is He has to tell us of our tarrying there. Three times He uses the
name of Father: 'Pray to thy Father;' 'Thy Father shall recompense thee;'
'Your Father knoweth what things ye have need of.' The first thing in closet-prayer
is: I must meet my Father. The light that shines in the closet must be:
the light of the Father's countenance. The fresh air from heaven with which
Jesus would have it filled, the atmosphere in which I am to breathe and
pray, is: God's Father-love, God's infinite Fatherliness. Thus each thought
or petition we breathe out will be simple, hearty, childlike trust in the
Father. This is how the Master teaches us to pray: He brings us into the
Father's living presence. What we pray there must avail. Let us listen
carefully to hear what the Lord has to say to us.
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. And so we are taught, at the very outset of our search after the secret
of effectual prayer, to remember that it is in the inner chamber, where
we are alone with the Father, that we shall learn to pray aright. The Father
is in secret: in these words Jesus teaches us where He is waiting us, where
He is always to be found. Christians often complain that private prayer
is not what it should be. They feel weak and sinful, the heart is cold
and dark; it is as if they have so little to pray, and in that little no
faith or joy. They are discouraged and kept from prayer by the thought
that they cannot come to the Father as they ought or as they wish. Child
of God! listen to your Teacher. He tells you that when you go to private
prayer your first thought must be: The Father is in secret, the Father
waits me there. Just because your heart is cold and prayerless, get you
into the presence of the loving Father. As a father pitieth his children,
so the Lord pitieth you. Do not be thinking of how little you have to bring
God, but of how much He wants to give you. Just place yourself before,
and look up into, His face; think of His love, His wonderful, tender, pitying
love. Just tell Him how sinful and cold and dark all is: it is the Father's
loving heart will give light and warmth to yours. O do what Jesus says:
Just shut the door, and pray to thy Father which is in secret. Is it not
wonderful? to be able to go alone with God, the infinite God. And then
to look up and say: My Father!
'And thy Father, which seeth in secret, will recompense thee.' Here
Jesus assures us that secret prayer cannot be fruitless: its blessing will
show itself in our life. We have but in secret, alone with God, to entrust
our life before men to Him; He will reward us openly; He will see to it
that the answer to prayer be made manifest in His blessing upon us. 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 cometh to God must believe that He is a
rewarder of them that seek Him.' Not on the strong or the fervent feeling
with which I pray does the blessing of the closet depend, but upon the
love and the power of the Father to whom I there entrust my needs. And
therefore the Master has but one desire: Remember your Father is, and sees
and hears in secret; go there and stay there, and go again from there in
the confidence: He will recompense. Trust Him for it; depend upon Him:
prayer to the Father cannot be vain; He will reward you openly.
Still further to confirm this faith in the Father-love of God, Christ
speaks a third word: 'Your Father knoweth what things ye have need of before
ye ask Him.' At first sight it might appear as if this thought made prayer
less needful: God knows far better than we what we need. But as we get
a deeper insight into what prayer really is, this truth will help much
to strengthen our faith. It will teach us that we do not need, as the heathen,
with the multitude and urgency of our words, to compel an unwilling God
to listen to us. It will lead to a holy thoughtfulness and silence in prayer
as it suggests the question: Does my Father really know that I need this?
It will, when once we have been led by the Spirit to the certainty that
our request is indeed something that, according to the Word, we do need
for God's glory, give us wonderful confidence to say, 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: FATHER! THOU KNOWEST I need
it. O the blessed liberty and simplicity of a child that Christ our Teacher
would fain cultivate in us, as we draw near to God: let us look up to the
Father until His Spirit works it in us. Let us sometimes in our prayers,
when 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.
And now, all ye who have anew entered the school of Christ to be taught
to pray, take these lessons, practise them, and trust Him to perfect you
in them. Dwell much in the inner chamber, with the door shut--shut in from
men, shut up with God; it is there the Father waits 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.
'LORD, TEACH US TO PRAY.'
Blessed Saviour! with my whole heart I do bless Thee for the appointment
of the inner chamber, as the school where Thou meetest each of Thy pupils
alone, and revealest to him the Father. O my Lord! strengthen my faith
so in the Father's tender love and kindness, that as often as I feel sinful
or troubled, the first instinctive thought may be to go where I know the
Father waits me, and where prayer never can go unblessed. Let the thought
that He knows my need before I ask, bring me, in great restfulness of faith,
to trust that He will give what His child requires. O let the place of
secret prayer become to me the most beloved spot of earth.
And, Lord! hear me as I pray that Thou wouldest everywhere bless the
closets of Thy believing people. Let Thy wonderful revelation of a Father's
tenderness free all young Christians from every thought of secret prayer
as a duty or a burden, and lead them to regard it as the highest privilege
of their life, a joy and a blessing. Bring back all who are discouraged,
because they cannot find ought to bring Thee in prayer. O give them to
understand that they have only to come with their emptiness to Him who
has all to give, and delights to do it. Not, what they have to bring the
Father, but what the Father waits to give them, be their one thought.
And bless especially the inner chamber of all Thy servants who are working
for Thee, as the place where God's truth and God's grace is revealed to
them, where they are daily anointed with fresh oil, where their strength
is renewed, and the blessings are received in faith, with which they are
to bless their fellow-men. Lord, draw us all in the closet nearer to Thyself
and the Father. Amen.
'After this manner pray;'
Or, The Model Prayer.
'After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven.'-Matt.
vi. 9.
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. In
condescension to our weakness, our heavenly Teacher has given us the very
words we are to take with us as we draw near to our Father. 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, and yet always draws us
back to itself as the deepest utterance of our souls before our God.
'Our Father which art in heaven!' To appreciate this word of adoration
aright, I must remember that 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 comprehends the mystery of redemption--Christ delivering
us from the curse that we might become the children of God. The mystery
of regeneration--the Spirit in the new birth giving us the new life. And
the mystery of faith--ere yet the redemption is accomplished or understood,
the word is given on the lips of the disciples to prepare them for the
blessed experience still to come. The words are the key to the whole prayer,
to all prayer. It takes time, it takes life to study them; it will take
eternity to understand them fully. The knowledge of God's Father-love is
the first and simplest, but also the last and highest lesson in the school
of prayer. 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, revealed by the Holy Spirit, that
the power of prayer will be found to root and grow. 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. O let us take time, until
the Spirit has made these words to us spirit and truth, filling heart and
life: 'Our Father which art in heaven.' Then we are indeed within the veil,
in the secret place of power where prayer always prevails.
'Hallowed be Thy name.' There is something here that strikes us at once.
While we ordinarily first bring our own needs to God in prayer, and then
think of what belongs to God and His interests, the Master reverses the
order. First, Thy name, Thy kingdom, Thy will; then, give us, forgive us,
lead us, deliver us. The lesson is of more importance than we think. 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. No one ever loses by
what he sacrifices for the Father.
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. There can be no deep growth in prayer unless this be made our aim.
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. But the grown-up son,
who only lives for the father's interest and takes charge of the father's
business, asks more largely, and gets all that is asked. 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, and let, on each act of adoration,
Our Father! there follow in the same breath Thy Name, Thy Kingdom, Thy
Will;--for this we look up and long.
'Hallowed be Thy name.' What name? This new name of Father. The word
Holy is the central word of the Old Testament; the name Father of the New.
In this name of Love all the holiness and glory of God are now to be revealed.
And how is the name to be hallowed? By God Himself: 'I will hallow My great
name which ye have profaned.' Our prayer must be that in ourselves, in
all God's children, in presence of the world, God Himself would reveal
the holiness, the Divine power, the hidden glory of the name of Father.
The Spirit of the Father is the Holy Spirit: it is only when we yield ourselves
to be led of Him, that the name will be hallowed in our prayers and our
lives. Let us learn the prayer: 'Our Father, hallowed be Thy name.'
'Thy kingdom come.' The Father is a King and has a kingdom. The son
and heir of a king has no higher ambition than the glory of his father's
kingdom. In time of war or danger this becomes his passion; he can think
of nothing else. The children of the Father are here in the enemy's territory,
where the kingdom, which is in heaven, is not yet fully manifested. What
more natural than that, when they learn to hallow the Father-name, they
should long and cry with deep enthusiasm: 'Thy kingdom come.' 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.
On our prayers too the coming of the kingdom waits. Shall we not join in
the deep longing cry of the redeemed: 'Thy kingdom come'? Let us learn
it in the school of Jesus.
'Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth.' This petition is too
frequently applied alone to the suffering of the will of God. In heaven
God's will is done, and 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. Because the will of God is the glory of heaven, the
doing of it is the blessedness of heaven. As the will is done, the kingdom
of heaven comes into the heart. And wherever faith has accepted the Father's
love, obedience accepts the Father's will. 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.' When first the child has yielded
himself to the Father in the care for His Name, His Kingdom, and His Will,
he has full liberty to ask for his 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? We may indeed in full confidence say:
Father, I live for Thy honour and Thy work; I know Thou carest for me.
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.' As
bread is the first need of the body, so forgiveness for the soul. And the
provision for the one is as sure as for the other. 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 really confessed
is really forgiven. Let us in faith accept the forgiveness as promised:
as a spiritual reality, an actual transaction between God and us, it is
the entrance into all the Father's love and all the privileges of children.
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. In each prayer to the Father I must
be able to say that I know of no one whom I do not heartily love.
'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 prayer for bread and pardon must be accompanied
by the surrender to live in all things in holy obedience to the Father's
will, and 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. So the prayer will lead us up to the true child-life: the
Father all to the child, the Father all for the child. We shall understand
how Father and child, the Thine and the Our, are all one, and how the heart
that begins its prayer with the God-devoted THINK, will have the power
in faith to speak out the OUR too. Such prayer will, indeed, be the fellowship
and interchange of love, always bringing us back in trust and worship to
Him who is not only the Beginning but the End: 'FOR THINE IS THE KINGDOM,
AND THE POWER, AND THE GLORY, FOR EVER, AMEN.' Son of the Father, teach
us to pray, 'OUR FATHER.'
'LORD, TEACH US TO PRAY.'
O Thou who art the only-begotten Son, teach us, we beseech Thee, to
pray, 'OUR FATHER.' We thank Thee, Lord, for these Living Blessed Words
which Thou has given us. We thank Thee for the millions who in them have
learnt to know and worship the Father, and for what they have been to us.
Lord! it is as if we needed days and weeks in Thy school with each separate
petition; so deep and full are they. But we look to Thee to lead us deeper
into their meaning: do it, we pray Thee, for Thy Name's sake; Thy name
is Son of the Father.
Lord! Thou didst once say: 'No man knoweth the Father save the Son,
and he to whom the Son willeth to reveal Him.' And again: 'I made known
unto them Thy name, and will make it known, that the love wherewith Thou
hast loved Me may be in them.' Lord Jesus! reveal to us the Father. Let
His name, His infinite Father-love, the love with which He loved Thee,
according to Thy prayer, BE IN US. Then shall we say aright, 'OUR FATHER!'
Then shall we apprehend Thy teaching, and the first spontaneous breathing
of our heart will be: 'Our Father, Thy Name, Thy Kingdom, Thy Will.' And
we shall bring our needs and our sins and our temptations to Him in the
confidence that the love of such a Father care for all.
Blessed Lord! we are Thy scholars, we trust Thee; do teach us to pray,
'OUR FATHER.' Amen.
FIFTH LESSON.
'Ask, and it shall be given you; '
Or, The Certainty of the Answer to Prayer.
'Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and
it shall be opened unto you: for every one that asketh receiveth, and he
that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened,'--MATT.
vii. 7, 8.
'Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss.'--Jas. iv. 3.
OUR Lord returns here in the Sermon on the Mount a second time to speak
of prayer. The first time He had spoken of the Father who is to be found
in secret, and rewards openly, and had given us the pattern prayer (Matt.
vi. 5-15). Here He wants to teach us what in all Scripture is considered
the chief thing in prayer: the assurance that prayer will be heard and
answered. Observe how He uses words which mean almost the same thing, and
each time repeats the promise so distinctly: 'Ye shall receive, ye shall
find, it shall be opened unto you;' and then gives as ground for such assurance
the law of the kingdom: 'He that asketh, receiveth; he that seeketh, findeth;
to him that knocketh, it shall be opened.' We cannot but feel how in this
sixfold repetition He wants to impress deep on our minds this one truth,
that we may and must most confidently expect an answer to our prayer. Next
to the revelation of the Father's love, there is, in the whole course of
the school of prayer, not a more important lesson than this: Every one
that asketh, receiveth.
In the three words the Lord uses, ask, seek, knock, a difference in
meaning has been sought. If such was indeed His purpose, then the 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. Asking and receiving the gift would thus
lead to seeking and finding the Giver, and this again to the knocking and
opening of the door of the Father's home and love. 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.
That the Lord should have thought it needful in so many forms to repeat
the truth, is a lesson of deep import. It proves that He knows our heart,
how doubt and distrust toward God are natural to us, and how easily we
are inclined to rest in prayer as a religious work without an answer. He
knows too how, even when we believe that God is the Hearer of prayer, believing
prayer that lays hold of the promise, is something spiritual, too high
and difficult for the half-hearted disciple. He therefore at the very outset
of His instruction to those who would learn to pray, seeks to lodge this
truth deep into their hearts: prayer does avail much; ask and ye shall
receive; every one that asketh, receiveth. This is the fixed eternal law
of the kingdom: if you ask and receive not, it must be because there is
something amiss or wanting in the prayer. Hold on; let the Word and the
Spirit teach you to pray aright, but do not let go the confidence He seeks
to waken: Every one that asketh, receiveth.
'Ask, and it shall be given you.' Christ has no mightier stimulus to
persevering prayer in His school than this. As a child has to prove a sum
to be correct, so the proof that we have prayed aright is, the answer.
If we ask and receive not, it is because we have not learned to pray aright.
Let every learner in the school of Christ therefore take the Master's word
in all simplicity: Every one that asketh, receiveth. He had good reasons
for speaking so unconditionally. Let us beware of weakening the Word with
our human wisdom. When He tells us heavenly things, let us believe Him:
His Word will explain itself to him who believes it fully. If questions
and difficulties arise, let us not seek to have them settled before we
accept the Word. No; let us entrust them all to Him: it is His to solve
them: our work is first and fully to accept and hold fast His promise.
Let in our inner chamber, in the inner chamber of our heart too, the Word
be inscribed in letters of light: Every one that asketh, receiveth.
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. Or, to look at both from the human side, there is the asking
and the receiving--the two halves that make up a whole. It is as if He
would tell us that we are not to rest without an answer, because it is
the will of God, the rule in the Father's family: every childlike believing
petition is granted. If no answer comes, we are not to sit down in the
sloth that calls itself resignation, and suppose that it is not God's will
to give an answer. No; 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. It is far easier to the flesh to submit
without the answer than to yield itself to be searched and purified by
the Spirit, until it has learnt to pray the prayer of faith.
It is one of the terrible marks of the diseased state of Christian life
in these days, that there are so many who rest content without the distinct
experience of answer to prayer. They pray daily, they ask many things,
and trust that some of them will be heard, but know little of direct definite
answer to prayer as the rule of daily life. And it is this the Father wills:
He seeks daily intercourse with His children in listening to and granting
their petitions. he wills that I should come to Him day by day with distinct
requests; He wills day by day to do for me what I ask. It was in His answer
to prayer that the saints of old learned to know God as the Living One,
and were stirred to praise and love (Ps. xxxiv., lxvi. 19, cxvi. 1). Our
Teacher waits to imprint this upon our minds: prayer and its answer, the
child asking and the father giving, belong to each other.
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. The gods of the heathen are dumb and cannot speak. Our
Father lets His child know when He cannot give him what he asks, and he
withdraws his petition, even as the Son did in Gethsemane. Both Moses the
servant and Christ the Son knew that what they asked was not according
to what the Lord had spoken: their prayer was the humble supplication whether
it was not possible for the decision to be changed. 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. It is in prayer and its answer that
the interchange of love between the Father and His child takes place.
How deep the estrangement of our heart from God must be, that we find
it so difficult to grasp such promises. Even while we accept the words
and believe their truth, the faith of the heart, that fully has them and
rejoices in them, comes so slowly. It is because our spiritual life is
still so weak, and the capacity for taking God's thoughts is so feeble.
But let us look to Jesus to teach us as none but He can teach. 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.'
Beloved fellow-disciples in the school of Jesus! let us set ourselves
to learn this lesson well. Let us take these words just as they were spoken.
Let us not suffer human reason to weaken their force. Let us take them
as Jesus gives them, and believe them. He will teach us in due time how
to understand them fully: let us begin by implicitly believing them. Let
us take time, as often as we pray, to listen to His voice: Every one that
asketh, receiveth. Let us not make the feeble experiences of our unbelief
the measure of what our faith may expect. Let us seek, not only just in
our seasons of prayer, but at all times, to hold fast the joyful assurance:
man's prayer on earth and God's answer in heaven are meant for each other.
Let us trust Jesus to teach us so to pray that the answer can come. He
will do it, if we hold fast the word He gives today: 'Ask, and ye shall
receive.'
'LORD, TEACH US TO PRAY.'
O Lord Jesus! teach me to understand and believe what Thou hast now
promised me. It is not hid from Thee, O my Lord, with what reasonings my
heart seeks to satisfy itself, when no answer comes. There is the thought
that my prayer is not in harmony with the Father's secret counsel; that
there is perhaps something better Thou wouldest give me; or that prayer
as fellowship with God is blessing enough without an answer. And yet, my
blessed Lord, I find in Thy teaching on prayer that Thou didst not speak
of these things, but didst say so plainly, that prayer may and must expect
an answer. Thou dost assure us that this is the fellowship of a child with
the Father: the child asks and the Father gives.
Blessed Lord! Thy words are faithful and true. It must be, because I
pray amiss, that my experience of answered prayer is not clearer. It must
be, because I live too little in the Spirit, that my prayer is too little
in the Spirit, and that the power for the prayer of faith is wanting.
Lord! teach me to pray. Lord Jesus! I trust Thee for it; teach me to
pray in faith. Lord! teach me this lesson of today: Every one that asketh
receiveth. Amen.
SIXTH LESSON.
'How much more?'
Or, The Infinite Fatherliness of God.
'Or what man is there of you, who, if his son ask him for a loaf, will
give him a stone; or if he shall ask for a fish, will give him a serpent?
If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children,
how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to
them that ask Him?'--MATT. vii. 9-11
IN these words our Lord proceeds further to confirm what He had said
of the certainty of an answer to prayer. To remove all doubt, and show
us on what sure ground His promise rests, He appeals to what every one
has seen and experienced here on earth. We are all children, and know what
we expected of our fathers. We are fathers, or continually see them; and
everywhere we look upon it as the most natural thing there can be, for
a father to hear his child. And the Lord asks us to look up from earthly
parents, of whom the best are but evil, and to calculate HOW MUCH MORE
the heavenly Father will give good gifts to them that ask Him. Jesus would
lead us up to see, that as much greater as God is than sinful man, so much
greater our assurance ought to be that He will more surely than any earthly
father grant our childlike petitions. As much greater as God is than man,
so much surer is it that prayer will be heard with the Father in heaven
than with a father on earth.
As simple and intelligible as this parable is, so deep and spiritual
is the teaching it contains. The Lord would remind us that the prayer of
a child owes its influence entirely to the relation in which he stands
to the parent. The prayer can exert that influence only when the child
is really living in that relationship, in the home, in the love, in the
service of the Father. The power of the promise, 'Ask, and it shall be
given you,' lies in the loving relationship between us as children and
the Father in heaven; when we live and walk in that relationship, the prayer
of faith and its answer will be the natural result. And so the lesson we
have today in the school of prayer is this: 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 honour 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:' the childlike privilege of asking
all is inseparable from the childlike life under the leading of the Spirit.
He that gives himself to be led by the Spirit in his life, will be led
by Him in his prayers too. And he will find that Fatherlike giving is the
Divine response to childlike living.
To see what this childlike living is, in which childlike asking and
believing have their ground, we have only to notice what our Lord teaches
in the Sermon on the Mount of the Father and His children. In it the prayer-promises
are imbedded in the life-precepts; the two are inseparable. They form one
whole; and He alone can count on the fulfilment of the promise, who accepts
too all that the Lord has connected with it. It is as if in speaking the
word, 'Ask, and ye shall receive,' He says: I give these promises to those
whom in the beatitudes I have pictured in their childlike poverty and purity,
and of whom I have said, 'They shall be called the children of God' (Matt.
v. 3-9): to children, who 'let your light shine before men, so that they
may glorify your Father in heaven:' to those who walk in love, 'that ye
may be children of your Father which is in heaven,' and who seek to be
perfect 'even as your Father in heaven is perfect' (v. 45): to those whose
fasting and praying and almsgiving (vi. 1-18) is not before men, but 'before
your Father which seeth in secret;' who forgive 'even as your Father forgiveth
you' (vi. 15); who trust the heavenly Father in all earthly need, seeking
first the kingdom of God and His righteousness (vi. 26-32); who not only
say, Lord, Lord, but do the will of my Father which is in heaven (vii.
21). Such are the children of the Father, and such is the life in the Father's
love and service; in such a child-life answered prayers are certain and
abundant.
But will not such teaching discourage the feeble one? If we are first
to answer to this portrait of a child, must not many give up all hope of
answers to prayer? The difficulty is removed if we think again of the blessed
name of father and child. A child is weak; there is a great difference
among children in age and gift. The Lord does not demand of us a perfect
fulfilment 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. Let any one simply and honestly begin to study the Sermon on
the Mount and take it as his guide in life, and he will find, notwithstanding
weakness and failure, an ever-growing liberty to claim the fulfilment of
its promises in regard to prayer. In the names of father and child he has
the pledge that his petitions will be granted.
This is the one chief thought on which Jesus dwells here, and which
He would have all His scholars take in. He would have us see that the secret
of effectual prayer is: to have the heart filled with the Father-love of
God. 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 aright. And then, when we see how much this Divine arithmetic
is beyond our comprehension, and feel how impossible it is for us to apprehend
God's readiness to hear us, then He would have us come and open our heart
for the Holy Spirit to shed abroad God's Father-love there. Let us do this
not only when we want to pray, but let us yield heart and life to dwell
in that love. The child who only wants to know the love of the father when
he has something to ask, will be disappointed. 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.
Beloved fellow-disciple! we begin to see what the reason is that we
know so little of daily answers to prayer, and what the chief lesson is
which the Lord has for us in His school. It is all in the name of Father.
We thought of new and deeper insight into some of the mysteries of the
prayer-world as what we should get in Christ's school; He tells us the
first is the highest lesson; we must learn to say well, 'Abba, Father!'
'Our Father which art in heaven.' He that can say this, has the key to
all prayer. In all the compassion with which a father listens to his weak
or sickly child, in all the joy with which he hears his stammering child,
in all the gentle patience with which he bears with a thoughtless child,
we must, as in so many mirrors, study the heart of our Father, until every
prayer be borne upward on the faith of this Divine word: 'How much more
shall your heavenly Father give good gifts to them that ask Him.'
'LORD, TEACH US TO PRAY.'
Blessed Lord! Thou knowest that this, though it be one of the first
and simplest and most glorious lessons in Thy school, is to our hearts
one of the hardest to learn: we know so little of the love of the Father.
Lord! teach us so to live with the Father that His love may be to us nearer,
clearer, dearer, than the love of any earthly father. And let the assurance
of His hearing our prayer be as much greater than the confidence in an
earthly parent, as the heavens are higher than earth, as God is infinitely
greater than man. Lord! show us that it is only our unchildlike distance
from the Father that hinders the answer to prayer, and lead us on to the
true life of God's children. Lord Jesus! it is fatherlike love that wakens
childlike trust. O reveal to us the Father, and His tender, pitying love,
that we may become childlike, and experience how in the child-life lies
the power of prayer.
Blessed Son of God! the Father loveth Thee and hath given Thee all things.
And Thou lovest the Father, and hast done all things He commanded Thee,
and therefore hast the power to ask all things. Lord! give us Thine own
Spirit, the Spirit of the Son. Make us childlike, as Thou wert on earth.
And let every prayer be breathed in the faith that as the heaven is higher
than the earth, so God's Father-love, and His readiness to give us what
we ask, surpasses all we can think or conceive. Amen.
NOTE.1
'Your Father which is in heaven.' Alas! we speak of it only as the utterance
of a reverential homage. We think of it as a figure borrowed from an earthly
life, and only in some faint and shallow meaning to be used of God. We
are afraid to take God as our own tender and pitiful father. He is a schoolmaster,
or almost farther off than that, and knowing less about us--an inspector,
who knows nothing of us except through our lessons. His eyes are not on
the scholar, but on the book, and all alike must come up to the standard.
Now open the ears of the heart, timid child of God; let it go sinking
right down into the inner most depths of the soul. Here is the starting-point
of holiness, in the love and patience and pity of our heavenly Father.
We have not to learn to be holy as a hard lesson at school, that we may
make God think well of us; we are to learn it at home with the Father to
help us. God loves you not because you are clever not because you are good,
but because He is your Father. The Cross of Christ does not make God love
us; it is the outcome and measure of His love to us. He loves all His children,
the clumsiest, the dullest, the worst of His children. His love lies at
the back of everything, and we must get upon that as the solid foundation
of our religious life, not growing up into that, but growing up out if
it. We must begin there or our beginning will come to nothing. Do take
hold of this mightily. We must go out of ourselves for any hope, or any
strength, or any confidence. And what hope, what strength, what confidence
may be ours now that we begin here, your Father which is in heaven!
We need to get in at the tenderness and helpfulness which lie in these
words, and to rest upon it--your Father. Speak them over to yourself until
something of the wonderful truth is felt by us. It means that I am bound
to God by the closest and tenderest relationship; that I have a right to
His love and His power and His blessing, such as nothing else could give
me. O the boldness with which we can draw near! O the great things we have
a right to ask for! Your Father. It means that all His infinite love and
patience and wisdom bend over me to help me. In this relationship lies
not only the possibility of holiness; there is infinitely more than that.
Here we are to begin, in the patient love of our Father. Think how He
knows us apart and by ourselves, in all our peculiarities, and in all our
weaknesses and difficulties. The master judges by the result, but our Father
judges by the effort. Failure does not always mean fault. He knows how
much things cost, and weighs them where others only measure. YOUR FATHER.
Think how great store His love sets by the poor beginnings of the little
ones, clumsy and unmeaning as they may be to others. All this lies in this
blessed relationship and infinitely more. Do not fear to take it all as
your own.
1From Thoughts on Holiness, by Mark Guy Pearse. What is so beautifully
said of the knowledge of God's Fatherliness as the starting-point of holiness
is no less true of prayer.
SEVENTH LESSON.
'How much more the Holy Spirit;
Or, The All-Comprehensive Gift.
'If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children,
how much more shall the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that
ask Him?'--LUKE xi. 13.
IN the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord had already given utterance to
His wonderful HOW MUCH MORE? Here in Luke, where He repeats the question,
there is a difference. Instead of speaking, as then of giving good gifts,
He says, 'How much more shall the heavenly Father give THE HOLY SPIRIT?'
He thus teaches us that the chief and the best of these gifts is the Holy
Spirit, or rather, that in this gift all others are comprised The Holy
Spirit is the first of the Father's gifts, and the one He delights most
to bestow. The Holy Spirit is therefore the gift we ought first and chiefly
to seek.
The unspeakable worth of this gift we can easily understand. Jesus spoke
of the Spirit as 'the promise of the Father;' the one promise in which
God's Fatherhood revealed itself. The best gift a good and wise father
can bestow on a child on earth is his own spirit. This is the great object
of a father in education--to reproduce in his child his own disposition
and character. If the child is to know and understand his father; if, as
he grows up, he is to enter into all his will and plans; if he is to have
his highest joy in the father, and the father in him,--he must be of one
mind and spirit with him. And so it is impossible to conceive of God bestowing
any higher gift on His child than this, His own Spirit. God is what He
is through His Spirit; the Spirit is the very life of God. Just think what
it means--God giving His own Spirit to His child on earth.
Or was not this the glory of Jesus as a Son upon earth, that the Spirit
of the Father was in Him? At His baptism in Jordan the two things were
united,--the voice, proclaiming Him the Beloved Son, and the Spirit, descending
upon Him. And so the apostle says of us, 'Because ye are sons, God sent
forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.' A
king seeks in the whole education of his son to call forth in him a kingly
spirit. Our Father in heaven desires to educate us as His children for
the holy, heavenly life in which He dwells, and for this gives us, from
the depths of His heart, His own Spirit. It was this which was the whole
aim of Jesus when, after having made atonement with His own blood, He entered
for us into God's presence, that He might obtain for us, and send down
to dwell in us, the Holy Spirit. As the Spirit of the Father, and of the
Son, the whole life and love of the Father and the Son are in Him; and,
coming down into us, He lifts us up into their fellowship. As Spirit of
the Father, He sheds abroad the Father's love, with which He loved the
Son, in our hearts, and teaches us to live in it. As Spirit of the Son,
He breathes in us the childlike liberty, and devotion, and obedience in
which the Son lived upon earth. The Father can bestow no higher or more
wonderful gift than this: His own Holy Spirit, the Spirit of sonship.
This truth naturally suggests the thought that this first and chief
gift of God must be the first and chief object of all prayer. For every
need of the spiritual life this is the one thing needful, the Holy Spirit.
All the fulness is in Jesus; the fulness of grace and truth, out of which
we receive grace for grace. The Holy Spirit is the appointed conveyancer,
whose special work it is to make Jesus and all there is in Him for us ours
in personal appropriation, in blessed experience. He is the Spirit of life
in Christ Jesus; as wonderful as the life is, so wonderful is the provision
by which such an agent is provided to communicate it to us. If we but yield
ourselves entirely to the disposal of the Spirit, and let Him have His
way with us, He will manifest the life of Christ within us. He will do
this with a Divine power, maintaining the life of Christ in us in uninterrupted
continuity. Surely, if there is one prayer that should draw us to the Father's
throne and keep us there, it is this: for the Holy Spirit, whom we as children
have received, to stream into us and out from us in greater fulness.
Table of Contents
FIRST LESSON.
'Lord, teach us to pray;'
Or, The Only Teacher.
SECOND LESSON.
'In spirit and truth.'
Or, The True Worshippers.
THIRD LESSON.
'Pray to thy Father, which is in secret; '
Or, Alone with God.
FOURTH LESSON
'After this manner pray;'
Or, The Model Prayer.
FIFTH LESSON.
'Ask, and it shall be given you; '
Or, The Certainty of the Answer to Prayer.
SIXTH LESSON.
'How much more?'
Or, The Infinite Fatherliness of God.
SEVENTH LESSON.
'How much more the Holy Spirit;
Or, The All-Comprehensive Gift.
EIGHTH LESSON.
'Because of his importunity;'
Or, The Boldness of God's Friends.
NINTH LESSON.
'Pray the Lord of the harvest;'
Or, Prayer provides Labourers.
TENTH LESSON.
'What wilt thou?'
Or, Prayer must be Definite.
ELEVENTH LESSON.
'Believe that ye have received;'
Or, The Faith that Takes.
TWELFTH LESSON.
'Have faith in God;'
Or, The Secret of believing Prayer.
THIRTEENTH LESSON.
'Prayer and fasting;'
Or, The Cure of Unbelief.
FOURTEENTH LESSON.
'When ye stand praying, forgive;'
Or, Prayer and Love.
FIFTEENTH LESSON.
'If two agree;'
Or, The Power of United Prayer
SIXTEENTH LESSON.
'Speedily, though bearing long;'
Or, The Power of Persevering Prayer.
SEVENTEENTH LESSON.
'I know that Thou hearest me always;'
Or Prayer in harmony with the being of God.
EIGHTEENTH LESSON
'Whose is this image?'
Or, Prayer in Harmony with the Destiny of
Man.
NINTEENTH LESSON.
'I go unto the Father!'
Or, Power for Praying and Working.
TWENTIETH LESSON.
'That the Father may be glorified;'
Or, The Chief End of Prayer.
TWENTY-FIRST LESSON.
'If ye abide in me;'
Or The All-Inclusive Condition.
TWENTY-SECOND LESSON.
'My words in you.'
Or, The Word and Prayer.
TWENTY-THIRD LESSON
'Bear fruit, that the Father may give what
ye ask;'
Or, Obedience the Path to Power in Prayer.
TWENTY-FOURTH LESSON.
'In my Name;'
Or, The All-prevailing Plea.
TWENTY-FIFTH LESSON.
'At that day;'
Or, The Holy Spirit and Prayer.
TWENTY-SIXTH LESSON.
'I have prayed for thee;'
Or, Christ the Intercessor.
TWENTY-SEVENTH LESSON.
'Father, I will;'
Or, Christ the High Priest
TWENTY-EIGHTH LESSON.
'Father! Not what I will;'
Or, Christ the Sacrifice.
TWENTY-NINTH LESSON.
'If we ask according to His will;
Or, Our Boldness in Prayer.
THIRTIETH LESSON.
'An holy priesthood;'
Or, The Ministry of Intercession.
THIRTY-FIRST LESSON.
'Pray without ceasing;'
Or, A Life of Prayer.
GEORGE MULLER, AND THE SECRET OF HIS
POWER IN PRAYER
PRAYER AND THE WORD OF GOD.
PRAYER AND THE WILL OF GOD.
PRAYER AND THE GLORY OF GOD.
PRAYER AND TRUST IN GOD.
SECOND LESSON.
THIRD LESSON.
FOURTH LESSON