Prayer
"He went up into the mountain apart to pray." His inner room was a mountainside. There He sought His Father's presence away from every person, out of sight and sound of the things of this world. What took the incarnate Son apart to pray? Two things constrained Him to the solitary place of communion, His love and His need of the Father.
Can we begin to comprehend the longing of the Son on earth for the Father in Heaven? He and the Father were one and it was a unity, first of all, in love. Throughout all eternity He had been in the bosom of the Father. He had lived in His intimate, immediate presence. Oh! it was the hunger and thirst of love that drew the God-man apart even from the friends whose companionship He so prized, apart from the work that He so loved, apart to that inner room in God's out of doors.
Alone with His Father on the mountain slope He could pour out His soul, He could lay bare His heart, He could unburden His spirit. There His desires, His longings, His heartaches, His disappointments, could be expressed! And in that inner room on the mountainside the Father always met Him. He was sure of a listening ear and a sympathetic heart. He always left the place of prayer refreshed. The inner room is the place of reciprocal communion.
Do you have an inner room? A shut door? A place to be alone with your Lord? It may be a real "closet" in your own home or it may be only a place in a ride to work or to town; or at a desk or on a mountainside or in a sickroom but it will be a place where the world is shut out and in spirit you are shut in alone with your Lord. It will be a place where Heaven and earth meet and the intimate, immediate presence of the Lord of glory will be realized.
Our desire to be alone with the Lover-Christ and our delight in the companionship of our Beloved will reveal the place He really holds in our affections. To have chosen Him as the Lover of one's soul; to have been joined to Him as one spirit; to share His life in its fullness, and then not to hunger and thirst for the privacy of the inner room where His presence may be realized and enjoyed apart from all intrusion of the outer world, is unthinkable. Communion with Christ is the imperative sequence of union with Him because along with the Lord Jesus behind the closed door one may be both the man that he really is and the man that he longs to be. There he is in the presence of the One who knows what is in him and unto whose eyes "all things are naked and open," yet He is the faithful and merciful High Priest who is touched with the feeling of our infirmities, and who is able to succour us who are tempted because He Himself hath suffered being tempted. So there alone with the God-man he may frankly and fully confess his sin, his failure, his defeat; and there in the intimate companionship of the victorious, triumphant Lord he may become more than conqueror. In the inner room, the sufferings and sorrows, the trials and tribulations, may be shared with the One who will understand and sympathize. There in the inner room in fellowship with his Lord, new aspirations for higher and holier things will be begotten; there the ambition to "press on toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus" will be quickened; there the determination to live habitually on the highest plane will be strengthened. And fro that inner room one will emerge with a shining face even as Moses came from the mount of God. The Christian will always find the inner room the place of reciprocal communion.
Another thing drew the incarnate Son apart to pray. It was His need. Yes, we dare say it - the Son of man had no other way of replenishing His spiritual supplies save in prayer. In His earthly life He was utterly dependent upon His Father for wisdom, strength, power and guidance. Of Himself He said nothing, He did nothing, He went nowhere. The Source of divine supplies for Him was in Heaven and the method of their transmission from Heaven to earth was prayer. The Son of Man in His representative capacity was limited to this medium of receiving supplies for His day's life and work. His own need drew Him into communion with His Father in Heaven.
"Because as he is, so are we in this world." So the Christian has no way of replenishing his ever diminishing spiritual supplies save in prayer. God gives His manna by the day. He would keep us utterly distrustful of self and wholly dependent upon Him - beneficiaries of His exhaustless bounty which which can be obtained only as it is sought and claimed in prayer.
The source of supplies is in Heaven, the realm of need is on earth, the line of communication is prayer. Communion with Christ because of need is a necessary sequence of union with Christ.
Reciprocal communion between Christ and the Christian is an absolute necessity of a Spirit-filled life. Through prayer the Christian is enabled to breathe the exhilarating air of the heavenlies while surrounded by the enervating atmosphere of the world. Through prayer he is able to live in the uplifting, purifying presence of his Saviour while in constant contact with the deteriorating, defiling power of sin. Through prayer the new creation breathes in the very life of God which sustains the new life and maintains it upon the highest plane.
"Lord, what a change within us one short hour
Spent in Thy presence will prevail to make -
What heavy burdens from our bosom take,
What parched grounds revive, as with a shower!
We kneel, and all around us seems to lower:
We rise, and all, the distant and the near,
Stands forth in sunny outline, brave and clear.
We kneel how weak; we rise how full of power!
Why, therefore, should we do ourselves this wrong
Or others - that we are not always strong,
That we are ever overborne with care,
That we should ever weak or heartless be,
Anxious or troubled, when with us in prayer,
And joy and strength and courage are with Thee?"
(R. C. Trench)
~Ruth Paxson~
(continued with # 20 - "An Upper Room - Responsive Cooperation")
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