What's The Good Of Prayer?
Lord, teach us to pray. - Luke 11:1
<http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?version=31&search=Luke+11%3A1>
It is not part of the life of a natural man to pray. We hear it said that a
man will suffer in his life if he does not pray; I question it. What will
suffer is the life of the Son of God in him, which is nourished not by food,
but by prayer. When a man is born from above, the life of the Son of God is
born in him, and he can either starve that life or nourish it. Prayer is the
way the life of God is nourished. Our ordinary views of prayer are not found
in the New Testament. We look upon prayer as a means of getting things for
ourselves; the Bible idea of prayer is that we may get to know God Himself.
"Ask and ye shall receive." We grouse before God, we are apologetic or
apathetic, but we ask very few things. Yet what a splendid audacity a
childlike child has! Our Lord says - "Except ye become as little children."
Ask, and God will do. Give Jesus Christ a chance, give Him elbow room, and
no man will ever do this unless he is at his wits' end. When a man is at his
wits' end it is not a cowardly thing to pray, it is the only way he can get
into touch with Reality. Be yourself before God and present your problems,
the things you know you have come to your wits' end over. As long as you are
self-sufficient, you do not need to ask God for anything.
It is not so true that "prayer changes things" as that prayer changes me and
I change things. God has so constituted things that prayer on the basis of
Redemption alters the way in which a man looks at things. Prayer is not a
question of altering things externally, but of working wonders in a man's
disposition.
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Victoria E Gilkerson
