Prayer for Support in Death!

John MacDuff, 1856 

"Yes, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff they comfort me." Psalm 23:4

O my Father, I come to You this night through Jesus Christ, the Son of Your love - beseeching You to have mercy upon me, and to impart unto me that Peace of Yours which passes all understanding. Blessed be Your great and glorious name, for those hopes full of immortality which have been opened up to me in the Gospel.

I rejoice in Christ as the great Abolisher of death. I rejoice that the rainbow of covenant faithfulness spans the entrance to the dark valley; that all that is terrible in the last enemy is in Him taken away, and that I can regard these closing hours of existence - as the introduction and doorway into everlasting bliss!

Give me grace, O my Father, to be living in constant preparation for death. Let me not unprofitably squander my present golden moments. Let me live while I live - let me live a dying life. Let me feel that life is a trust given me by You. O You Great Proprietor of my being, may this all important talent of time be more consecrated to Your glory. Let it not be mine, when the hour of death arrives - to bewail lost and forfeited opportunities, when it is too late. 

Let me not leave until then, what best can be done and what only may be done now. May it be my earnest endeavor while it is called today to secure a saving interest in the everlasting covenant, and then I need not fear how soon the silver cord may be loosed, and the golden bowl broken. Through Jesus the darkness has been taken from death; and to His own true people - its shadows will melt and merge into the brightness of eternal day.

You are ever giving me impressive remembrances that "at such an hour as I think not," the summons may come, "Prepare to meet Your God!" The race is not to the swift - nor the battle to the strong. Truly every moment there may be but a step between me and death. Let me be so living a life of habitual faith in the Son of God - that this step may be changed into a step between me and glory.

O my Father, prepare all who may now be laid on dying couches for their great change. May their eyes be directed to Jesus. Pillowing their heads on his exceeding great and precious promises - may they fall asleep in the glorious hope of a joyful resurrection.

This Prayer is an excerpt of John MacDuff prayer written in 1856  It is now available on Kindle for only $0.99 

 

Prayer for the Life of Faith!

John MacDuff, 1856 

"The life which I live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me." Galatians 2:20

O my Father, I desire to draw near unto Your blessed presence, on this evening of another day, adoring You for all the loving-kindness which You are continually making to pass before me. May I ever be enabled to look up to You as the Author and Bestower of all my mercies. May no created good ever be allowed to dispossess You of my affections. May all that I enjoy, alike temporal and spiritual - be traced to You, the Fountain of all happiness. 

May prosperity be hallowed, by receiving it as a pledge of Your favor; and may trial lose its bitterness, by the consciousness that every thorn in my path is permitted by You, and every bitter drop in the cup appointed by You.

May I thus seek, O my Father, from day to day, to live a life of simple faith and dependence on Your grace. With confiding love, may I commit my every care and need and perplexity to Your better direction, feeling sweetly assured that You will guide me by a right way to the city of habitation.

Above all, would I seek a renewed interest in those covenant blessings which Christ died to purchase - and which He is exalted to bestow. All my hope is in Him! Weak, helpless, perishing - I flee to Him, as the help and hope and portion of all who seek Him. Hide me, O blessed Jesus, in Your wounded side. I would overcome alone, through the blood of the Lamb. "Wash me thoroughly in Your precious blood. May I hear Your own voice of pardoning love saying, "Your sins which are many, are all forgiven."

After all You have done for me - let me harbor no guilty and unworthy suspicions of Your faithfulness. Let me feel assured that Your tender love regulates all Your allotments. You are pledged to use the dealing and discipline best suited for Your people's case, and what will best effect Your own will concerning them, even their sanctification. Carry on within me Your own work - in Your own way. 

Fortify me against temptation; let me not surrender myself to the base compliances of a world lying in wickedness. But, strong in the Lord and in the power of His might - may I know that He who is with me is far greater, than all who can be against me. Oh enkindle afresh my expiring, languishing love; let me live more under the influence of "eternal realities," having the eye of faith more upwards and homewards, looking for that blessed hope, even the glorious appearing of my great God my Savior.

Let Your kingdom come! Arise, O my Father, and plead Your own cause. May all the ends of the earth soon be gladdened with the Gospel's joyful sound!

Bless all Your people in sorrow, all bereaved of near and dear friends; may they see no hand in their trials, but Yours. You give us our blessings; and when You see fit - You revoke the grant. Let us see love in every threatening wave, all rolling at Your bidding.

O my Father, take the charge of me this night. Abide with me, blessed Savior, for it is toward evening and the day is far spent. Oh, may it be mine to feel that each successive evening as it brings me nearer to eternity - is ripening me for its never-ending joys. And all I ask is for Jesus' sake. Amen.

"Let my prayer be set forth before You as incense - and the lifting up of my hands, as the evening sacrifice."

This Prayer is an excerpt of John MacDuff prayer written in 1856  The ebook  is now available on Kindle for only $0.99 

 

A Prayer for Gratitude of the Past!

John MacDuff, 1856 

"Bless the Lord, O my soul, and do not forget all His benefits!" Psalm 103:2

O God Almighty, draw near to me at this time in Your great mercy - and accept my evening sacrifice! I bless You for all that gladdens my earthly lot - for food and clothing, for friends and home, for health of body and soundness of mind. Lord, I delight to trace the wondrous way by which You have hitherto led me! You have compassed my path, and my lying down. You have supplied my ever-recurring necessities. My needs have been infinite - but infinite too has been Your gracious supply. With a grateful heart I would set up my Ebenezer, saying, "Hitherto has the Lord helped me!" And remembering Your faithfulness in the past - I would confidently trust You for the future.

May I thankfully employ the manifold gifts of Your bounty. Impress upon me the feeling that I am but a steward, responsible to You for all that I possess. Let me not selfishly appropriate the varied means of usefulness which you have put within my power - but willingly employ these in Your service for the good of others. When You come to demand a reckoning - may I be able to give a faithful account of my stewardship, paying You Your own, with interest.

O my Father, while I bless You for the other proofs and tokens of Your love - far above all would I bless You for Jesus! Where would I have been this night but for Him? How dreary would have been the past! How dismal and hopeless the future! Thanks, eternal thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift! Let me feel, more than I have done, the exceeding riches of Your grace - in Your kindness toward me through Christ Jesus. Let all Your dealings only serve to confirm my love to Him, and to lead me to cleave to Him with fuller purpose of heart. May he have my undivided homage. Let no earthly gift or blessing - supplant the Giver. May every rill of temporal bliss be doubly precious to me - as flowing from Christ's atoning sacrifice!

I rejoice in the midst of trial and perplexity - to think of You, the tried and suffering One. I rejoice that amid my sorrows - I can remember Yours, that amid my very tears - I can remember Jesus wept. You can enter into all the peculiarities of Your people's case, for You were in "all points tempted."

Let me feel, even amid the troublous changes of life, that what I am apt to call painful vicissitudes - are the sovereign decrees and allotments of Your infinite wisdom! What I cannot now comprehend - be it mine to wait the disclosures of that blessed morning when, standing at the luminous portals of Heaven, I shall joyfully acknowledge that, "You have done all things well!"

Bless my beloved friends; may they be growing in your fear and favor; may they all at last, as sheaves in your heavenly garner - be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.

I commend myself, gracious God, to Your care; let me retire to rest this night in the blessed consciousness of Your favor; and if spared to see the light of a new day, fit me for whatever You have in store for me. And all I ask is for Jesus' sake. Amen.

"Let my prayer be set forth before You as incense - and the lifting up of my hands, as the evening sacrifice."

This Prayer is an excerpt of John MacDuff prayer written in 1856  It is now available on Kindle for only $0.99 

 

Prayer for Firmness in Temptation

"Resist the devil - and he will flee from you." James 4:1

O my Father, You are from everlasting to everlasting. Loving me from the beginning - You have promised to love me even unto the end. Notwithstanding all the fitful changes of my own changing heart towards You, there has been, and can be, no shadow of turning in Your covenant faithfulness towards me. I am at this hour, the monument of Your mercy- a living comment on the words, "Your ways are not as man's ways - nor Your thoughts as man's thoughts."

If I have been enabled in any degree to resist the assaults of temptation - it is all Your doing. I am "kept by the power of God." Unless the Lord had been my help - my soul must long before now have dwelt in eternal burnings. By the grace of God - I am what I am!

O my Father, indulged and cherished sin unfits me for the enjoyment of Your service and favor. I have to lament my proneness to evil, the natural bias of my heart to that which is opposed to Your pure and holy will. When I would do good - sin is too often present with me. I feel the power of my spiritual adversaries. If left to myself and my own unaided resources - I must hopelessly resign the conflict.

But I rejoice to think that there is help and hope and strength at hand. I would look to Him, who is now bending an eye of unchanging love upon me from the eternal throne. All Your ascension glories, blessed Redeemer, have not obliterated the tenderness of Your humanity. You are "that same Jesus." You, the abiding Friend, are still left changeless, among the changeable. And when Satan often desires to have me, that he might sift me as wheat, it is Your intercessory prayer that saves me from utter ruin. You are pleading for me, that my faith will not fail! Oh may I be found invincible in the hour of temptation, being made more than conqueror - through Him that loved me. Sheltered in You, the true Refuge - the wicked one will cannot touch me.

Let me not trifle with my own soul - or with the momentous interests of eternity. Let me every day, be living under the realizing consciousness that Your pure eye is upon me. Keep me from all that is at variance with Your gracious mind. Keep me from unchristian tempers, from an unholy or inconsistent or uneven walk. By a Christ-like demeanor, may I exhibit the sanctifying and transforming influence of the Gospel on my own soul - that others may take knowledge of me that I have been with Jesus.

God of Bethel! take under Your protecting providence all related to me by endearing ties. However far we may be separated from one another, let us never be separated from You. Let us often rejoice in this, our common meeting-place; that around Your mercy-seat in spirit we can assemble - and lay our evening incense in the one Golden Censer of our gracious High Priest!

Take charge of me this night, defend me from all danger; whether I wake or sleep, may I live together with You. All that I ask or hope for - is in the name and for the sake of Jesus Christ, my only Savior. Amen.
"Let my prayer be set forth before You as incense - and the lifting up of my hands, as the evening sacrifice."

This Prayer is an excerpt of John MacDuff prayer written in 1856  It is now available on Kindle for only $0.99 This is a useful book to keep preciously with you 

 

Prayer for the Knowledge of Christ

"That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings." Philippians 3:10

Almighty God, draw near to me this night in Your great mercy. What am I, that nothingness, unworthiness, and sinfulness - should be permitted to stand in the presence of infinite purity, majesty, and glory? Lord, I dare not have ventured to bow at your footstool in my own merits. I am poor and wretched, and miserable, and blind, and naked. Enter not in judgment with Your servant, for in Your sight no flesh living can be justified.

But, adored be Your name, I have an all-sufficient ground of confidence with which to approach You. I bless You, that by the doing and dying of Jesus, You have opened up a way of reconciliation to the chief of sinners. Oh, enable me to know more fully the adaptation of His person and work, to all the necessities and exigencies of my character and circumstances. Let me know him in His infinite Godhead - as "mighty to save;" in His spotless humanity - as mighty to compassionate. 

Let me know Him in all His offices - as . . .
my Prophet, my Priest, my King,
my Kinsman-Redeemer within the veil, 
my Refuge in trouble, 
my Guide in perplexity, 
my Support in death, 
my Portion through eternity!

I rejoice, blessed Jesus, at the hidden springs of life resident in You! You are suited to all the varied needs and circumstances, and trials of Your people - for every moment of need, for every diversity of situation.

O, better than the best of earthly friends, who, though enthroned amid the hosannas of angels - have still Your human sympathy unaltered and unchanged, draw near to me this night, and breathe upon me, and say, "Peace be unto you." Let me know the melting energy of Your love, and the attractive power of Your cross. May I keep the unwavering eye of faith steadily directed to Your all-glorious sacrifice. 

Be . . .
the habitual object of my contemplation, 
the source of holiest joy, 
the animating principle of obedience.

May all creature-love be subordinated to Yours. May my temper, my walk, my conversation - be regulated in accordance with Your blessed will and holy example. May this be the lofty aim and ambition of life - to act so as to please Jesus.

Bless my dear friends, may they too be led to count all but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus their Lord, whom to know is life eternal. Pity the careless; reclaim the backsliding; comfort the sorrowful; sustain the dying. May the Lord arise and have mercy on His spiritual Zion; may He show that the time to favor her, yes, the set time, is come!

Before I lay my head on my nightly pillow, I would lay anew my guilt on the head of the Divine Surety; may I fall asleep under the blessed sense of sin forgiven - and look forward to that blessed day when earth's night-shadows shall have vanished forever, and when I shall be enabled more fully "to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge." And all I ask or hope for, is for His sake. Amen.

"Let my prayer be set forth before You as incense - and the lifting up of my hands, as the evening sacrifice."

This Prayer is an excerpt of John MacDuff prayer written in 1856  It is now available on Kindle for only $0.99 This is a useful book to keep preciously with you 

 

 

Prayer for Composure in Trial

"Even so, Father; for so it seemed good in Your sight." Matthew 11:26

O my Father, I come into Your presence this night, rejoicing that amid all earth's vicissitudes, I have in You - a Rock that can never be shaken. You do according to Your will in the armies of Heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth! You do all things well - and nothing but what is well. There is no finite wisdom in Your dealings - all is the result of combined faithfulness, power, and love. 

Let me repose in the righteous ordinations of Your will. If You withhold from me earthly blessings - let me feel that the very denial is precious, because it is Your sovereign pleasure. Covenant love and wisdom cannot lead or teach me wrong; every burden and affliction are imposed by You. The lot may be thrown into the lap - but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord.

O You who turn the shadow of death into the morning - may every wilderness-storm only drive me nearer Yourself, my true shelter. You take the sting from every cross - and the bitterness from every cup. Let me recognize in all that befalls me - the tokens of my Heavenly Father's love! And if sense and sight should at times fail to spot "the bright light in the cloud," may I see written over every dark trial - Your own unanswerable challenge, "He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all - how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?"

Lord! the end of all Your sovereign dealings - is to subjugate my wayward will, and to unfold more of the preciousness of Jesus. Blessed Spirit of all grace! Take of the things that are Christ's - and show them unto my soul. Let me not stagger at the promises through unbelief. Let me see nothing but love in the past, love in the present, and love looming through the mists of a cloudy future. You, O my Father, are seated by my every furnace - all is meted out, all is provided for; all has a "need be" in it! 

Magnify the power of Your grace in me, by a sweet spirit of patient submission to Your righteous ordinations. May I seek to have no other prayer than this, "Father, glorify Your name." Impart that inner sunshine which no outward darkness or trial can obscure. May the peace of God, which passes understanding, keep my heart.

May Your Holy Spirit shed abroad His blessed influences over the whole Church. Revive Your work, O my God, in the midst of the years. In wrath, remember mercy. May Your ministers be more faithful. May Your people be more holy and consistent in their walk with You. May the young be growing up in Your fear and favor; may the aged find in You the staff of their declining years. May the sick and afflicted pillow their head on Your promises. May the dying fall asleep in Jesus.

I commend myself, my friends, and all belonging to me - to Your paternal care and keeping. And when earth's long night-watches of trial and sorrow are ended, may I wake up in the sorrowless morning of glory, to enjoy uninterrupted fellowship with Yourself. Through Jesus Christ, my only Lord and Savior. Amen.

"Let my prayer be set forth before You as incense - and the lifting up of my hands, as the evening sacrifice."

This Prayer is an excerpt of John MacDuff prayer written in 1856

It is now available on Kindle for only $0.99

This is a useful book to keep preciously with you 

 

I went from someone who knows nothing about prayer, embarrass to open my mouth in front of people to a life of total commitment to prayer where when I am addressing my father, I do not care if my English is right, I do not care about my grammar, and basically do not care at all about who is standing next to me. Your rank, status, style, education or what have you do not matter to me because when I am praying, even if the room if full with people, it is personal and it is about me and my dad. This is not something you develop overnight. Through practice it took me almost a decade. It is a life where God takes us gradually by the hand and teach us in the way we should go. Psalm 109:4 says “….But I am a man of prayer." Some versions say: “…but I give myself unto prayer” -- or “…But I continue to pray.” The Psalmist did not mean by that he prayed when he had a problem or when they attacked him.  It is a life totally committed and given up to Him

While God expects all of us to be given up to prayer exactly like Jesus Christ did when He walked the earth, but it is not a life for everyone. This does not mean you are off the hook because it is not for everyone. It does not mean that you are not going to have to answer to God for not having cultivated this life. It does not mean you will be off the hook for all the people that could have been blessed through your prayers. You will not be off the hook for having trodden the sacrifice He made on the Cross to bring us the freedom to approach Him at any time. While this life is not for everyone, but it is certainly for those who love Him with reverence, fear and gratefulness in their heart, so, in this sense, yes you will have to answer for your lack of love and fear. The prerequisite for this life of prayer is: love and gratitude in the soul.

The frequency we turn our eyes and heart to Him is very important. You might say well, I do not have the time. Well, I say to you, if you have time to surf the internet for your own entertainment you made a choice between God, eternal things and wasting fifteen minutes of your life that you will never get back. I am not being harsh, but it is about prioritizing. While you are walking toward the washroom, pay attention to what occupy your mind. While you are washing dishes, cooking etc., the time you spent thinking about the cares of this world could have been given to God.

I know I like mentioning the washrooms and there is a reason behind it. I was working for a Bank where I used to give them at least twelve hours per day, plus about three hours travel time to and from fighting the traffic. Plus most of the time I had to go in on Saturday just so I could catch up. I was constantly tired. One day, I knew I had to make a decision to learn to cultivate a prayer life at least something that seemingly resemble to Christ’s.  Until then my prayer time was like a duty. My problem was the fact that there was not enough time in the day for me to pray. I also felt I needed every waking moment at work to keep in mind what needed to be done. I started my prayer life by accepting the fact that my job needed all my attention, yes, but the time that I was taking to walk toward the washroom was mine. So at least three times a day, I would go to the washrooms just to turn my mind to Jesus. All of it was done in my heart. It was hard at first but before I know it I started going to the washrooms just to be with Him. As time went by, I learned to take away from my sleeping time and shared it with Him. That too was extremely hard but God knows when we make sacrifices just to be with Him, and He does uphold and blesses us. The point is, you need to do whatever it takes to acquire this prayer life.

Suffice to say this verse that Oswald Chambers expounded in today’s devotional, is a deep verse. It is one of those verses where it will take God years to develop it in your life. Even after He develops it in your life, there will still be a bigger part of it that He can only show you on the last day. But, for Him to develop it in your life, it requires a life of abandonment at His feet. It is a life that takes your all, yet you do not have to worry about how to get there, but just start where you are and with the little time you have to offer. While you might be constrained by time and it is understandable to some extend, but do not be stingy in your attitude toward Him. Do not be stingy in your yieldedness either. God really makes provision for us to reach the point where we need nothing else because we have such great spiritual light and knowledge of Him. This does not mean that we know everything, but it will certainly mean that we know everything we need to know to rest secure in His bosom in this life. It is not a fake rest where we muster in our own strength, but one that comes directly from the oneness we share with Him.

When His Salvation touches your soul, you can never go back to the meagre and useless life you knew before. When you truly know Him, it is actually depressive to live your ordinary life on this earth, yet you are propelled forward because you know too much to settle for what you can see today. In a way, there is no rest for you until you see Him again. Make no mistake, the more you experience God, the more difficult it is to live out this life on earth, because you have tasted the sweet nectar of the heavenly life. Life down here is depressive because there is nothing that could ever satisfy what your soul is longing for which is living an uninterrupted, passionate, majestic and all around a wonder of heaven kind of oneness with Him. Yet, while you are longing for the life to come, in a paradox, you find rest in Him. This rest comes from an attitude of the heart. 

This attitude of the heart comes from having been led up to the heart of God the Father Himself. The journey of finding the heart of the Father starts with Salvation yes, but if there is one lesson I learned in the wilderness with God, Oswald says it best in the May 27 devotion “…Our waiting is not dependent on the providence of God, but on our own spiritual fitness. It is not the baptism of the Holy Spirit that changes people, but the power of the ascended Christ coming into their lives through the Holy Spirit. We all too often separate things that the New Testament never separates. The baptism of the Holy Spirit is not an experience apart from Jesus Christ— it is the evidence of the ascended Christ.” The evidence of the ascended Christ in us is never invisible to us or people around us.

Being able to submit and start a prayer life right now with God that after a while become bigger than life, is the evidence of the ascended Christ in you. Cultivating a life of prayer is not a life apart from your Salvation, it is Salvation in your soul being worked out with fear and trembling. Sure, there will be pruning through it and the vinedresser will appear to be harsh sometimes. But, it is a path that only you can take and you have to meet with Him alone. I guarantee you that you will stumble and fall and He will help you get right back on your feet, you dust your bottom and continue. He will break you and you will carry the invisible scars, but through the pain you will find daddy’s heart. If you think knowing Christ bring joy to your heart and soul, wait till you find the heart of God the Father, it is a joy simply out of this world. Would you submit to it? Would you let Him show you? Or, are you too busy finding your thrills for this life in the care of this world?  Make the right decision!

Unquestioned Revelation

05

28

2013

In that day you will ask Me nothing —John 16:23

When is “that day”? It is when the ascended Lord makes you one with the Father. “In that day” you will be one with the Father just as Jesus is, and He said, “In that day you will ask Me nothing.” Until the resurrection life of Jesus is fully exhibited in you, you have questions about many things. Then after a while you find that all your questions are gone— you don’t seem to have any left to ask. You have come to the point of total reliance on the resurrection life of Jesus, which brings you into complete oneness with the purpose of God. Are you living that life now? If not, why aren’t you?

“In that day” there may be any number of things still hidden to your understanding, but they will not come between your heart and God. “In that day you will ask Me nothing”— you will not need to ask, because you will be certain that God will reveal things in accordance with His will. The faith and peace of John 14:1 has become the real attitude of your heart, and there are no more questions to be asked. If anything is a mystery to you and is coming between you and God, never look for the explanation in your mind, but look for it in your spirit, your true inner nature— that is where the problem is. Once your inner spiritual nature is willing to submit to the life of Jesus, your understanding will be perfectly clear, and you will come to the place where there is no distance between the Father and you, His child, because the Lord has made you one. “In that day you will ask Me nothing.”

Courtesy of: http://utmost.org/

Thinking Of Prayer As Jesus Taught Part 2

Those words A.C.T. S. meaning ADORE – CONFESS – THANKSGIVING & - SUPPLICATION truly describe prayer to a tee. As I learned to pray, I made sure I followed the script, because it worked for me. But, as God got hold of me and lead me to the wilderness so that I could be tested, unlearned things, be taught etc, within three years my prayer life had changed and I no longer needed the script because my life was becoming “the script”.

God knows what we have to offer is faulty, but He also wants to take us to a place where He gives us His best. One example of that is “love” When we first respond to God’s love, we do it with our own love and our own love is selfish because it is based on give and take. (Philos love) The first time God showed me how He needed to exchange my Philos love so that I can learn to love Him with His own Agape love which is unconditional love. I cried like a child because it was a period of intense love between me and the father and I found that I had nothing to offer back to Him. He had to take my faulty love, (Philos), and exchanged it for His agape love, which I use to love Him back. To me that was a sad thing because I wanted to have something that was mine that I could offer to Him. I found out we truly go into this relationship with empty hands.   

Like Oswald Chambers said “our thinking about prayer, whether right or wrong, is based on our own mental conception of it.”  It is true when we first start with prayer for a while our thinking process is not where it should be with God and yet He is okay with it because He knows only the triune God can get us to where we need to be with Him.

So, where do we need to be with Him? First of all, it is a life of abiding and John 15:7 gave us a tall order of where He wants us to be with Him “if you abide in Me and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you.” Prayer is like food to our spiritual life and if you go too long without food you will die of starvation, prayer does the same thing in our spiritual life. This life of abiding in Him, while Oswald Chambers is right, often times you feel there is nothing different about you, and you wonder if you are abiding. I know by now that I do not need to worry about it because it is not about feeling. Abiding in oneness in Him becomes so much a natural thing, and it is so unconsciously done that you do not even notice anything different.

While we do not have to worry about abiding because it is His job to keep us there, but we do have to worry about NOT abiding. The Scriptures tell us with a strong warning not to grieve the Holy Spirit. When there is a disconnect in the abiding process we know it because the Holy Spirit let us know of the danger we are in, through this little voice within and our job is to heed and make things right with Him. This little voice acts like a sensor in a car that let you know when we are in danger of being out of oil. Hence why John 15:7 says “if you abide” the “if” is there for a reason. Oswald Chambers also said in his devotion below “if we are obeying Him….Be aware of anything that stops the offering up of prayer.” He also said something in this devotion that applied to all of us Christians “The danger we have is that we want to water down what Jesus said to make it mean something that aligns with our common sense” This is one of the reasons it is important to walk in the Spirit. Only, Him can reveal the proper way we ought to use God’s word according to His standards.

When you read James 5:13-16 you find that prayer is truly powerful and effective. But, he made sure to end it this way “The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.” Obviously it would be nice to have more and more Christians praying, but, throughout the Bible, God tells us that at the end of the day there are some conditions to prayers and He spelled them out of us. God is a good God and He takes care of even the worse unbelievers and they too have a certain amount of His grace. I mean by that, they are breathing, they get jobs, and they can put food on their tables etc., so of course He would take care of us in the body of Christ even when our prayers are not correct. But, He expects us to grow, obey more, trust Him more, and believe in Him more. In the end, what pleases Him most is the prayer of a righteous person. The one that obeys, the one that abide even when life is at its worse, the one that trust and believe in Him etc., those people, their prayers are powerful and effective.

As we grow spiritually, each one of us is changing into an offering that constantly live at His feet. The life we live now, take shape and slowly become an act of ADORATION & THANKSGIVING. We become inwardly bi-product of those words. We adore Him though our reverence for Him, abiding in Him and our obedience to His word. We are thankful for whom He is and who He made us to be, and since we trust and believe Him we can give Him our all to have His way with us.  As you pray, you realize you no longer say Lord I adore you through “just words”, but as you are saying those words, your soul is gazing into His face and you can see yourself like a child at His feet because that’s where your spirit lives. Thus, pray without ceasing is not only an act of the will that we do to obey and honour the father, but it changes each one of us slowly as we become “the offering.” Your life becomes a constant prayer to Him! As you fulfill the adoration and thanksgiving part the rest of the acronym supplication and confession they are a given because it takes humility to be truly thankful. Through being thankful you give Him the praise and honour due to Him, etc. As for the confession part, if is a given that you are taking confession of sins very seriously, hence why you can sit at His feet and live there. It is because you confess, with a repentant heart that you are cleansed of all unrighteousness and abide constantly in oneness.

In the same way Christ needed to be in constant prayer so the life of God could be manifested in Him, we need to be in constant prayer so the life of Christ could grow stronger and be manifested in us. So, in this sense, prayer is a tool at our disposal to enable us to become an act of worship to Him as we become intimate with Him.

Thinking of Prayer as Jesus Taught By Oswald Chambers

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2013

Pray without ceasing . . . —1 Thessalonians 5:17

Our thinking about prayer, whether right or wrong, is based on our own mental conception of it. The correct concept is to think of prayer as the breath in our lungs and the blood from our hearts. Our blood flows and our breathing continues “without ceasing”; we are not even conscious of it, but it never stops. And we are not always conscious of Jesus keeping us in perfect oneness with God, but if we are obeying Him, He always is. Prayer is not an exercise, it is the life of the saint. Beware of anything that stops the offering up of prayer. “Pray without ceasing . . .”— maintain the childlike habit of offering up prayer in your heart to God all the time.

Jesus never mentioned unanswered prayer. He had the unlimited certainty of knowing that prayer is always answered. Do we have through the Spirit of God that inexpressible certainty that Jesus had about prayer, or do we think of the times when it seemed that God did not answer our prayer? Jesus said, “. . . everyone who asks receives . . .” (Matthew 7:8). Yet we say, “But . . . , but . . . .” God answers prayer in the best way— not just sometimes, but every time. However, the evidence of the answer in the area we want it may not always immediately follow. Do we expect God to answer prayer?

The danger we have is that we want to water down what Jesus said to make it mean something that aligns with our common sense. But if it were only common sense, what He said would not even be worthwhile. The things Jesus taught about prayer are supernatural truths He reveals to us.

Courtesy of: http://utmost.org/thinking-of-prayer-as-jesus-taught/