Let Us Pray
By Pastor Mitch Horton | March 2002 | Posted in • Archives | (0) Comments
“So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened” (Luke 11:9-10).
“…The earnest, heartfelt, continual prayer of a righteous man makes tremendous power available – dynamic in its working” (James 5:16b Amplified Bible)
“Be unceasing in prayer -pray perseveringly” (1Thessalonians 5:17 Amplified Bible).
The greatest thing that we can do to enhance the Kingdom of God in our sphere of influence is to PRAY. We often get “the cart before the horse” and pray only after we’ve exhausted ourselves with labor for the Lord!
This month I’d like to give you a series of quotes that have challenged and changed my prayer life. I pray that they will affect you the way they have affected me.
E. M. Bounds said, “How we estimate and place prayer is how we estimate and place God. To give prayer a secondary place is to make God secondary in life’s affairs.”1
The place of our weakness is the place of strength. Paul said, “When I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:10). The more humble we are before God, the more we will carry everything to Him in prayer.
The following quote reveals Leonard Ravenhill’s under-standing of prayer and its place of humility: “Your prayer life denotes how much you depend on your own ability, and how much you really believe in your heart when you sing, ‘nothing in my hands I bring, simply to the cross I cling.’ The more self-confidence you have, the less you pray. The less self-confidence you have, the more you have to pray.”2
This thought is continued as we reflect on what E.M. Bounds wrote: “Not to pray is to declare there is nothing needed and to admit there is no realization of a need. That is what magnifies the sin of prayerlessness. It represents an attempt at instituting an independence of God, a self-sufficient ruling of God out of our life. It is a declaration made to God that we do not need Him and hence do not pray to Him.”3
I noticed that this idea of “needing nothing” was found in the lukewarm Laodecian church. No doubt that they likewise exalted the pride of man through lack of prayer. Jesus invited this self-sufficient bunch to see His view of their lack of need. He saw them as “wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked!” To sum it up again, being lukewarm promotes self-sufficiency, pride, and prayerlessness!
God has intended that our prayer life be the means of His sending His love and blessing upon a wayward, love-starved, sin-laden world. Our lack of prayer could reveal a lack of love for others!
Satan is obviously aware that our lack of prayer can hinder God’s plans to bless humanity. We would do well to see our lack of pray as an open door for our enemy to get an advantage in our world. Samuel Chadwick said, “Satan fears nothing from prayerless studies, teaching, and preaching. He laughs at our toil, mocks at our wisdom, but trembles when we pray.”4
In the next few issues, I’ll be addressing some of the “how tos” of effective prayer. Our times demand that we give God our best! And all that He does in us, through us, and around us, begins when we obey the call to pray.
I’ll leave you with another quote from Samuel Chadwick that I believe sums up the need of the hour: “Go back! Back to that upper room; back to your knees; back to searching of heart and habit, thought and life; back to pleading, praying, waiting; until the Spirit of the Lord floods the soul with light and you are endued with power from on high. Then go forth in the power of Pentecost, and the Christ-life shall be lived, and the works of Christ shall be done. You shall open blind eyes, cleanse foul hearts, break man’s fetters, and save man’s souls. In the power of the indwelling Spirit, miracles become the commonplace of daily living.”5
1. E. M. Bounds, The Weapon of Prayer (Whitaker House, 1996) p.11.
2. Leonard Ravenhill, Prayer. From an article on the Internet.
3. E. M. Bounds, The Weapon of Prayer (Whitaker House, 1996) p.126.
4. J. Oswald Sanders, Shoe Leather Commitment (Moody Press, 1990) p.121.
5. E. M. Bounds, The Weapon of Prayer (Whitaker House, 1996) p.121.
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