Prayer and praise are the oars by which a man may row his boat into the deep waters of the knowledge of Christ.
Charles Spurgeon (1834 – 1892)
HT: @ChristianRep
Tag Archives: Prayer
The Kingdom Comes When the King Is Honored
“Thy will be done.” And with what better comment upon the words can I begin than this from John Calvin: “The substance of the prayer is that God would enlighten the world by the light of His Word, would form the hearts of men by the influence of His Spirit, and would restore to order, by the gracious exercise of His power, all the disorder that exists in the world.” John Calvin thus brings us to a very definite conception as to what the prayer implies. The Kingdom comes just as God’s thought and Spirit become dominant — His grace pervading human affection, His counsel illumining human judgment, His purpose fashioning human desire. His will controlling human movement. The Kingdom comes when His throne is revered, and when “the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne” constrains our wills in glad and spontaneous obedience. The Kingdom comes just as human relationships are shaped and beautified by the character of God, His righteousness expressed in our rectitude, His grace flowering in our graciousness, and His love finding a witness in everything lovely and of good report. The Kingdom comes when the King is honored and when His statutes become our songs.
Private Prayer Leads to Public Prayer
And if we thus value prayer in secret, we shall be the more ready to prize opportunities of social and public prayer. We shall be delighted to have others backing us in our wrestlings, and we shall have a deeper assurance of the efficacy of the process. We shall come to fed that in reply to these unseen but earnest traffickings with heaven there comes down to us a real wealth, the most precious of all treasures; the time is not wasted, but leads to glorious gain — gain more glorious than if we carried away from the mercy seat handfuls of literal gold; seeing that what we get is not the gold that perisheth, but the treasures of heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, nor thieves break through and steal.
Things Happen When We Pray
God mysteriously weaves the prayers of his people into the way he runs the world. Things happen because we pray.
HT: @desiringgod
We Pray Because God Is God
Prayer to God presupposes the fact of God as a hearer and answerer of prayer, in such relations with or in such attitude toward the one who prays, as to justify the privilege of prayer. One would have little encouragement to make a personal request of God, unless he felt that God would be entreated by him as a petitioner. Hence prayer, as mere supplication or intercession, involves an understood relation between him who prays and Him who is prayed to, that carries with it well-known privileges and duties. A man cannot even ask help of God unless he has hope that God will hear and heed him because God is God, and because the petitioner stands as he stands before God; for a cry of despair is not in the spirit of prayer.
Praying “Thy Will Be Done”
This yielding to the will of God, being a will so different from our own, is a great difficulty. We yield today, and tomorrow it seems as hard as ever. We gather together all the reasons there are for yielding, and at length we are able sincerely to pray “Thy will be done;” we are very peaceful and very glad, and do not doubt that this is a final decision; but an hour undeceives us, and shows us that the decision has to be made again, and in still more trying circumstances. If any petition needs to be daily repeated it is this.
Praying as If You Were Standing at God’s Throne
Grant that I may worship and pray unto Thee with as much reverence and godly fear, as if I saw the heavens open and all the angels that stand around Thy throne. Amen.
Lord, Teach Us to Pray
[Jesus] was the greatest of Pray-ers, and His disciples never, so far as we know, said, ‘Lord, teach us how to preach,’ but they said, ‘Lord, teach us how to pray.’
The Telescope of Prayer
Coming events cast their shadows before them, and when God is about to bless His people His coming favor casts the shadow of prayer over the church. When He is about to favor an individual He casts the shadow of hopeful expectation over his soul. Our prayers, let men laugh at them as they will, and say there is no power in them, are the indicators of the movement of the wheels of Providence. Believing supplications are forecasts of the future, he who prayeth in faith is like the seer of old, he sees that which is to be: his holy expectancy, like a telescope, brings distant objects near to him.
Victorious Prayer
Ah, prayer turns trembling saints into great victors!
Henry W. Frost
Life Is Worship 