Shall we not all set ourselves to learn the lesson which will make prevailing prayer possible—the lesson of a faith that always sings, “My God will hear me”? Simple and elementary as it is, it needs practice and patience, it needs time and heavenly teaching, to learn it aright. Under the impression of a bright thought, or a blessed experience, it may look as if we knew the lesson perfectly. But ever again the need will recur of making this our first prayer—that God who hears prayer would teach us to believe it, and so to pray [p154] aright. If we desire it we can count upon Him He who delights in hearing prayer and answering it, He who gave His Son that He might ever pray for us and with us, and His Holy Spirit to pray in us, we can be sure there is not a prayer that He will hear more certainly than this: that He so reveal Himself as the prayer-hearing God, that our whole being may respond, “My God will hear me.”
[p155] A PLEA FOR MORE PRAYER
CHAPTER XIII
[Contents]
“Go and inquire for one called Saul of Tarsus: for, behold, he prayeth.”—Acts ix. 11.
“For this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might show forth all long-suffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on Him to life everlasting.”—1 Tim. i. 16.
God took His own Son, and made Him our Example and our Pattern. It sometimes is as if the power of Christ’s example is lost in the thought that He, in whom is no sin, is not man as we are. Our Lord took Paul, a man of like passions with ourselves, and made him a pattern of what he could do for one who was the chief of sinners. And Paul, the man who, more than any other, has set his mark on the Church, has ever been appealed to as a pattern man. In his mastery of Divine truth, and [p156] his teaching of it; in his devotion to his Lord, and his self-consuming zeal in His service; in his deep experience of the power of the indwelling Christ and the fellowship of his cross; in the sincerity of his humility, and the simplicity and boldness of his faith; in his missionary enthusiasm and endurance—in all this, and so much more, “the grace of our Lord Jesus was exceeding abundant in him.” Christ gave him, and the Church has accepted him, as a pattern of what Christ would have, of what Christ would work. Seven times Paul speaks of believers following him: (1 Cor. iv. 16), “Wherefore I beseech you, be ye followers of me”; (xi. 1), “Be ye followers of me, even as I am of Christ”; Phil, iii. 17, iv. 9; 1 Thess. i. 6; 2 Thess. iii. 7–9.
If Paul, as a pattern of prayer, is not as much studied or appealed to as he is in other respects, it is not because he is not in this too as remarkable a proof of what grace can do, or because we do not, in this respect, as much stand in need of the help of his example. A study of Paul as a pattern of prayer will bring a rich reward of instruction and encouragement. The words our Lord used of him at his conversion, “Behold he prayeth,” may be taken as the keynote of his life. The heavenly [p157] vision which brought him to his knees ever after ruled his life. Christ at the right hand of God, in whom we are blessed with all spiritual blessings, was everything to him; to pray and expect the heavenly power in his work and on his work, from heaven direct by prayer, was the simple outcome of his faith in the Glorified One. In this, too, Christ meant him to be a pattern, that we might learn that, just in the measure in which the heavenliness of Christ and His gifts, the unworldliness of the powers that work for salvation, are known and believed, will prayer become the spontaneous rising of the heart to the only source of its life. Let us see what we know of Paul.
Paul’s Habits of Prayer.
These are revealed almost unconsciously. He writes (Rom. i. 9), “God is my witness, that without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers. For I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift, to the end ye may be established.” Rom. x. 1, ix. 2, 3: “My heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they may be saved”; “I have great heaviness and [p158] continual sorrow of heart; for I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren.” 1 Cor. i. 4: “I thank my God always on your behalf, for the grace of God which is given you by Jesus Christ.” 2 Cor. vi. 4, 6: “Approving ourselves as the ministers of Christ, in watchings, in fastings.” Gal. iv. 19: “My little children, of whom I travail in birth again till Christ be formed in you.” Eph. i. 16: “I cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers.” Eph. iii. 14: “I bow my knees to the Father, that He would grant you to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man.” Phil. i. 3, 4, 8, 9: “I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine making request for you all with joy. For God is my record, how greatly I long after you all in the bowels of Jesus Christ. And this I pray”—Col. i. 3, 9: “We give thanks to God, praying always for you. For this cause also, since the day we heard it, we do not cease to pray for you, and to desire”—Col. ii. 1: “I would that ye knew what great conflict I have for you, and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh.” 1 Thess. i. 2: “We give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in [p159] our prayers.” iii. 9: “We joy for your sakes before God; night and day praying exceedingly that we might perfect that which is lacking in your faith.” 2 Thess. i. 3: “We are bound to thank God always for you. Wherefore also we always pray for you.” 2 Tim. i. 3: “I thank God, that without ceasing I have remembrance of thee night and day.” Philem. 4: “I thank my God, making mention of thee always in my prayers.”