An Upper Room - Responsive Cooperation
This is a command and a call to pray for our friends and for fellow-members of the body of Christ. Our knowledge of another's need is a call to prayer. I cannot tell you what tremendous encouragement and strength came to me this last year to learn from three Christian workers, all extremely busy men with many others on their prayer list whom they knew far better than they knew me, that they prayed daily for me.
"The weary ones had rest, the sad had joy,
That day, and wondered 'how',
A ploughman singing at his work had prayed,
'Lord, help them now.'
Away in foreign lands they wondered how
Their simple word had power.
At home, the Christians two or three had met
To pray an hour.
Yes, we are always wond'ring 'how';
Because we do not see
Some one, unknown perhaps, and far away,
On bended knee."
2 Thess. 3:1, "Finally, brethren, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may have free course, and be glorified, even as it is with you."
Romans 15:30, "Now I beseech you, brethren, for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake, and for the love of the Spirit, that ye strive together with me in your prayers to God for me."
Here is a call to prayer for the minister and for his preaching of the Word of God. Paul conceived the work of a church to be a sacred partnership between pastor and people through preaching and prayer. Is it possible that the paucity of results from the preaching of God's Word is largely due to the prayerlessness that accompanies it? Do you criticize your preacher? I wonder what would happen if that criticism were converted into prayer? When Mr. Spurgeon was asked for the secret of the power manifested in his ministry, he replied, "My people pray for me." "For the Lord Jesus Christ's sake and for the love of the Spirit," will you strive together with your pastor in your prayers to God for him?
Ephesians 6:18, "Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints."
The life of many Christians is confined within its own denominational borders; often even narrowed down to the activities and interests of "my church." We repeat the creed "I believe in the communion of saints" but we practice it but little. Nothing would be so conductive to the dissipation of denominational jealousy, rivalry and overlapping of work and to the real unity of God's people of all tongues and tribes as "prayer and supplication in the Spirit for all saints." Will you begin today to pray for one of God's saints of another nationality in some distant country, in another state or providence of your own country, in some city or town of your own state, in another church within your own city, in some family within your own church?
1 Timothy 2:1-2, "I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty."
What a program for world-wide prayer God lays out for His Church in these words! What a call to His people to exercise their Christian priesthood! What a challenge to cooperate with Him in strengthening and sustaining those who are in authority in their endeavors to bring nations out of their existing confusion! Oh! what a change in condition might be wrought in China today if the prayers of all God's people everywhere were focused in believing intercession upon that nation! Andrew Murray says of 1 Tim. 2:2, "What a faith in power of prayer! A few feeble and despised Christians are to influence the mighty Roman emperors, and help in securing peace and quietness. Let us believe that prayer is a power that is taken up by God in His rule of the world. When God's people unite in this they may count upon their prayer effecting in the unseen world more than they know."
Matthew 9:37-38, "Then saith he unto his disciples, the harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few: Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth laborers into his harvest."
~Ruth Paxson~
(continued with # 23)
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