Life on the Highest Plane
The Prerequisites for Prevailing Prayer
Scripture in its teaching on fasting offers the spiritual man a suggestion regarding a method by which he may secure the detachment of spirit needful for effectual prayer. Fasting connotes two things both of which are essential to vital spirituality, self-denial and discipline.
There are things in the life of every Christian which are perfectly legitimate but which may have a dulling, deadening influence upon the spirit. There are other things which are right in themselves but which often are used in excess and so crowd out more important things. To keep the spirit alert, untrammeled, usable, it must e disciplines through denial. Is not this the essence of fasting? Food is a legitimate thing, even a necessity, yet may not the spirit often have been hindered in the performance of its tasks through the sluggishness of the body caused by overeating? Friends are a legitimate part of one's life. They are a necessity in a normal, balanced life, yet may not many of us have been robbed of power because we have spent more time with them than with the divine Friend? Our recreation and our reading are essential to the health of body and mind yet may we not have become impoverished spiritually because of ill-proportioned time given them?
Did not Jesus Christ intimate that the disciples were impotent to cast the foul spirit out of the epileptic because they were unwilling to forego a meal or to deny themselves the companionship of family and friends?
Mark 9:29, "And he said unto them, This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting."
The football player, the mountain climber and the soldier in action know the meaning of self-denial and self-discipline. But very few Christians take seriously enough the race into which they have entered or the warfare in which they are engaged. Too few are willing for the sacrificial living which victory over the enemy demands. "It is love of our lives that weakens our spirits, and makes us unfit for the fight." God needs prayer-warriors today who have within them the spirit of the Apostle Paul who cared more for the victorious completion of his life's ministry than for life itself.
Acts 20:24, "But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God."
A third prerequisite for prevailing prayer is definiteness of aim. Much prayer is very desultory, often forgotten as soon as offered and calls forth no watchful waiting for an answer. We aim at nothing and get what we aim at. There has been no definite petition and so there is no definite answer.
But God invites us to come to Him with clear cut petitions and teaches us to focus our prayer on particular needs. "What wilt thou that I should do unto thee?" was Christ's word to blind Bartimaeus by the roadside as again and again he cried out his prayer, "Thou Son of David, have mercy on me." "What wilt thou that I should do unto thee?" Definitely came the answer, "Lord, that I might receive my sight. And immediately he received his sight, and followed Jesus in the way." God honors a definite prayer with a definite answer. "Every prayer should be with the mind, a definite desire; with the heart, a longed-for need; with the will, a claimed petition; with faith, an accepted gift; and with thanksgiving, that praises for the answer that is assured. This cleanses the petition list from all generalizing in prayer and gives reality to praying and to receiving."
John 14:13-14, "And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask anything in my name, I will do it."
The book of the Acts gives repeated instances of definite answers to definite petitions. But one will be cited. Peter and John had been called into question by the Sanhedrin for the miracle performed on the man born lame and had been threatened and charged to speak no more nor teach in the name of Jesus. They immediately engaged with their fellow-Christians in prayer. The prayer was not long nor was it full of generalities. It focused on their one outstanding need.
Acts 4:29, 31, "And now, Lord, behold their threatenings: and grant unto thy servants that with all boldness they may speak thy word ... And when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spake the word of God with boldness."
A fourth prerequisite of prevailing prayer is intensity of desire. God has given us a very gracious promise in Psalm 37:4, "Delight thyself also in the Lord; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart." Do we take in fully the magnitude of the responsibility of this promise? How much and what do we desire? "Ye have not because ye ask not," for "If ye ask - I will do." God frankly says that His doing is limited by our asking: it is dependent upon our desire.
But even when we do ask we often do not want the thing asked for sufficiently to persevere until it comes. Prevailing prayer calls us to persistent perseverance and patient waiting in intense desire until the answer comes.
Romans 12:12, "Rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer."
Colossians 4:2, "Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving."
~Ruth Paxon~
(continued with # 24)
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