Prayer - Chambers, Oswald
God is never impressed with our earnestness, he promises to answer us when we pray on one ground only, viz. , the ground of the redemption. The redemption of the lord Jesus provides me with a place for intercession.
The only way to get into the relationship of asking is to get into the relationship of absolute reliance on the lord Jesus. And this is the confidence that we have in him . . . (1 john 5:1416).
Remember, you have to ask things which are in keeping with the god whom Jesus Christ reveals. When you pray, what conception have you in your mind your need, or Jesus christs omnipotence? (see john 14:1213).
Asking in prayer is at once the test of three things simplicity, stupidity and certainty of god. Prayer means that i come in contact with an almighty Christ, and almighty results happen along the lines he laid down.
It is not that my prayers are so important, that is not the point; god has so made it that by means of intercession certain types of blessing come upon men. In christian work that is where the filling up comes in; we are apt to bank much more on talking to people.
If i am a christian, i am not set on saving my own skin, but on seeing that the salvation of god comes through me to others, and the great way is by intercession. The bible knows nothing about a gift of prayer, the only prayer the bible talks about is the prayer that is able to bring down something from god to men. How impatient we are in dealing with other people! Our actions imply that we think god is asleep, until god brings us to the place where we come on them from above.
The illustrations of prayer our lord uses are on the line of importunity, a steady, persistent, uninterrupted habit of prayer. God puts us in circumstances where he can answer the prayer of his son ( john 17), and the prayer of the holy ghost (Romans 8:26). The reason for intercession is not that god answers prayer, but that god tells us to pray.
God never answers prayer to prove his own might.
The answers to prayer never come by introspection but always as a surprise. We don’t hear god because we are so full of noisy introspective requests. Spiritual certainty in prayer is gods certainty, not a side-eddy of sanctimoniousness
Prayer is the vital breath of the christian; not the thing that makes him alive, but the evidence that he is alive.
The very powers of darkness are paralysed by prayer. No wonder Satan tries to keep our minds fussy in active work till we cannot think to pray.
God is not meant to answer our prayers, he is answering the prayer of Jesus Christ in our lives; by our prayers we come to discern what gods mind is, and that is declared in john 17.
According to the new testament, prayer is gods answer to our poverty, not a power we exercise to obtain an answer. Intercession does not develop the one who inter- cedes, it blesses the lives of those for whom he inter- cedes. The reason so few of us intercede is because we dont understand this.
By intercessory prayer we can hold off Satan from other lives and give the holy ghost a chance with them. No wonder Jesus put such tremendous emphasis on prayer! If your crowd knows you as a man or woman of prayer, they have a right to expect from you a nobler type of conduct than from others. If i pray that someone else may be, or do, some- thing which i am not, and dont intend to do, my praying is paralysed.
When you put god first you will get your times of prayer easily because god can entrust them to the soul who wont use them in an irrational way and give an occasion to the enemy to enter in. Watch gods ways in your life, you will find he is developing you as he does the trees and the flowers, a deep silent working of the god of creation. The enemy goes all he can against our communion with god, against our solitude with god, he tries to prevent us from drawing our breath in the fear of the lord. The greatest answer to prayer is that i am brought into a perfect understanding with god, and that alters my view of actual things. We must steadfastly work out repentance in intercessory prayer. Beware lest activity in proclaiming the truth should mean a cunning avoidance of spiritual concentration in intercession. The lost sight of god inevitably follows spiritual teaching that has not a corresponding balance of pri- vate prayer. See that you do not use the trick of prayer to cover up what you know you ought to do. The meaning of prayer is that i bring power to bear upon another soul that is weak enough to yield and strong enough to resist; hence the need for strenuous intercessory prayer. Never try to make people agree with your point of view, begin the ministry of intercession. The only being worth agreeing with is the lord Jesus Christ. Remember 1 john 5:16.
The prayer of the saints is never self-important, but always god-important.
What happens when a saint prays is that the paracletes almighty power is brought to bear on the one for whom he is praying. God does not give faith in answer to prayer: he reveals himself in answer to prayer, and faith is exercised spontaneously.
