…one
of His disciples said to Him, "Lord, teach us to pray…" —Luke 11:1
Prayer is not a normal part of the life of the
natural man. We hear it said that a person’s life will suffer if he doesn’t
pray, but I question that. What will suffer is the life of the Son of God in
him, which is nourished not by food, but by prayer. When a person is born again
from above, the life of the Son of God is born in him, and he can either starve
or nourish that life. Prayer is the way that the life of God in us is
nourished. Our common ideas regarding prayer are not found in the New
Testament. We look upon prayer simply as a means of getting things for
ourselves, but the biblical purpose of prayer is that we may get to know God
Himself.
“Ask, and you will receive…” (John 16:24). We
complain before God, and sometimes we are apologetic or indifferent to Him, but
we actually ask Him for very few things. Yet a child exhibits
a magnificent boldness to ask! Our Lord said, “…unless you…become as little
children…” (Matthew 18:3). Ask and God will do. Give Jesus Christ the
opportunity and the room to work. The problem is that no one will ever do this
until he is at his wits’ end. When a person is at his wits’ end, it no longer
seems to be a cowardly thing to pray; in fact, it is the only way he can get in
touch with the truth and the reality of God Himself. Be yourself before God and
present Him with your problems— the very things that have brought you to your
wits’ end. But as long as you think you are self-sufficient, you do not need to
ask God for anything.
To say that “prayer changes things” is not as
close to the truth as saying, “Prayer changes me and then I
change things.” God has established things so that prayer, on the basis of
redemption, changes the way a person looks at things. Prayer is not a matter of
changing things externally, but one of working miracles in a person’s inner
nature.
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