Weekly message: Prayer by Rev.Katherine Liu Bruce

Weekly message: Prayer 

By Rev.Katherine Liu Bruce  

Christian Arts Ministries: Biblical precepts & Gospel music; Pastoral ministry &Counseling   

Ø  The Lord turned the captivity of Job when he prayed for his friends (Job42:10)

             The plaintive, self-centered, morbid kind of prayer, a dad-set that I want to be right, is never found in the New Testament. The fact that I am trying to be right with God is a sign that I am rebelling against the Atonement. “Lord, I will purify my heart if You will answer my prayer; I will walk rightly if You will help me.” I cannot make myself right with God, I cannot make my life perfect; I can only be right with God is I accept the Atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ as an absolute gift. Am I humble enough to accept it? I have to resign every kind of claim and cease from every effort, and leave myself entirely alone in His hands, and then begin to pour out in the priestly work of intercession.  There is much prayer that arises from real disbelief in the Atonement. Jesus is not beginning to save us, He has saved us, the thing is done, and it is an insult to ask Him to do it.

                If you are not getting the hundredfold more, not getting insight into God’s word, then start praying for your friends, enter into the ministry of the interior. “The Lord turned the captivity of Job when he prayed for his friends.” (Job 42:10) The real business of your life as a saved soul is intercessory prayer. Wherever God puts you in circumstances, pray immediately, pray that His Atonement may be realized in other lives as it has been in yours. Pray for your friends now; pray for those with whom you come in contact now. 

Ø  But ye are…a royal priesthood. (1 Peter 2:9)

 By what right do we become “a royal priesthood?” by the right of the Atonement. Are we prepared to leave ourselves resolutely alone and to launch out into the priestly work of prayer? The continual grubbing on the inside to see whether we are what we ought to be generates a self-centered, morbid type of Christianity, not the robust, simple life of the child of God. Until we get into a right relationship to God, it is a case of handing on by the skin of our teeth, and we say—what a wonderful victory I have got! There is nothing indicative of the miracle of Redemption in that. Launch out in reckless belief that the Redemption is complete, and then bother no more about yourself, but begin to do as Jesus Christ said --- Pray for the friend who comes to you at midnight, pray for the saints, pray for all men. Pray on the realization that you are only perfect in Christ Jesus, not on this plea –“O Lord, I have done my best, please hear me.” 

How long is it going to take God to free us from the morbid habit of thinking about ourselves? We must get sick unto death of ourselves, until there is no longer any surprise at anything God can tell us about ourselves. We cannot touch the depths of meanness in ourselves. There is only one place where we are right, and that is in Christ Jesus.  When we are there, then we have to pour out for all we are worth in this ministry of the interior.

Ø  When thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and …pray to thy Father which is in secret. (Matt.6:6) 

 Jesus did not say –Dream about thy Father in secret, but pray to thy Father in secret. Prayer is an effort of will. After we have entered our secret place and have shut the door, the most difficult thing to do is to pray; we cannot get our minds into working order, and the first the first thing that conflicts is wandering thoughts. The great battle in private prayer is the overcoming of mental woolgathering. We have to discipline our minds and concentrate on willful prayer.

             We must have a selected place for prayer and when we get there the plague of flies begins—this must be done, and that. “Shut thy door.” A secret silence means to shut the door deliberately on emotions and remember God. God is in secret, and He sees us from the secret place; He does not see us as other people see us, or as we see ourselves. When we live in the secret place it becomes impossible for us to doubt God, we become more sure of Him than of anything else. Your Father, Jesus says, is in secret and nowhere else.    

             Enter the secret place, and right in the center of the common round you find God there all the time. Get into the habit of dealing with God about everything, unless in the first waking moment of the day you learn to fling to the door wide back and let God in, you will work on a wrong level all day; but swing the door wide open and pray to your Father in secret, and every public thing will be stamped with the presence of God. 

Ø  Conditional term of “Everyone that asketh receiveth.”

 “What man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone?” (Matt.7:9)  The illustration of prayer that our Lord uses here is that of a good child asking for a good thing. We talk about prayer as if God heard us irrespective of the fact of our relationship to Him. (Matt.5:45).  Never say it is not God’s will to give you what you ask, don’t sit down and faint, but find out the reason, turn up the index. Are you rightly related to your wife, to your husband, to your children, to your fellow-students—are you a “good child” there? “O Lord, I have been irritable and cross, but I do want spiritual blessing.” You cannot have it, you will have to do without until you come into the attitude of a good child.

  We mistake defiance for devotion; arguing with God for abandonment. We will not look at the index. Have I been asking God to give me money for something I want when there is something I have not paid for? Have I been asking God for liberty while I am withholding it from someone who belongs to me? I have not forgiven someone his trespasses; I have not been kind to him; I have not been living as God’s child among my relatives and friends.  I am a child of God only by regeneration, and as a child of God I am good only as I walk in the light. Prayer with most of us is turned into pious platitude; it is a matter of emotion, mystical communion with God. Spiritually we are all good at producing fogs. If we turn up the index, we will see very clearly what is wrong—that friendship, that debt, that temper of mind. It is no use praying unless we are living as children of God. Then Jesus says, “ Everyone that asketh receiveth.”

 

Bibliography,

Barker, Kenneth L. NIV Study Bible. Grand Rapids, MI:  Zondervan, 1985.                   

Chambers, Oswald. My Utmost for His highest. N.Y. Dodd, Mead & Company, 1935.

King James, The Holy Bible, Cleveland, OH: The world publishing company

Lee, Witness. The New Testament (R.V.) Anaheim, CA: Living Stream Ministry, 1985.

Ryrie, Charles C. The Ryrie study Bible (NIV).Chicago, IL: The Moody Bible Institute, 1986.