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God invented prayer, and recruits men and women to prevail with Him in it. Some take that challenge seriously, and mountains get moved as a result.
Recent Entries
Theological SteakApril 10, 2012
These words by P. T. Forsythe on the magnificence of Christ's work are to theology what Ruth's Chris is to a good steak.
Describing the Indescribable
February 11, 2012
What we have in Christ will take all eternity to describe. But for one segment of one sermon, a great preacher made a mighty attempt.
Making Sense Of It All
January 30, 2012
Where are things headed? Is there rhyme and reason to the endless cycle of summer, fall, winter and spring? Is there a plan in place, or is randomness the explanation?
Suffering Saints
January 25, 2012
We get nervous thinking about it - suffering for the sake of Christ. How necessary is it, and what does it produce in us?
George Herbert on Prayer Meetings
January 21, 2012
Prayer Meetings are a thing of the past. Or so it seems. What has been lost? Maybe more than we realize.
When Fear Is Good
January 7, 2012
NO FEAR, we are told. And the point is well taken. But fear can be healthy, at least when it comes to eternal matters.
Happy, Happy, Happy
January 4, 2012
The declaration of independence holds up the pursuit of happiness as a right. Did you ever consider the reading the bible might be the one source that will never let you down?
Peas In a Praying Pod
October 11, 2008
Moses and Aaron were among His priests, Samuel was among those who called on His name; they called on the Lord, and He answered them. Psalm 99:6
Epaphras....is always wrestling in prayer for you. Colossians 4:12
A prayer of the prophet Habakkuk the prophet. Lord, I have heard of your fame; I stand in awe of your deeds, O Lord. Renew them in our day, in our time make them known; in wrath remember mercy. Habakkuk 3:1-2
"The principal end of prayer is to excite, stir up and draw forth the principle of grace, of faith and love in the heart, unto a due exercise in holy thoughts of God and spiritual things, with affectons suitable unto them." John Owen
John Owen uses the word "exercise," and Paul uses wrestling to describe what he has observed regarding the prayer life of Epaphras. John Owen says that Habakkuk's name means "wrestler or striver, and he seems to have turned that energy into prevailing prayer on behalf of the church in Colossae.
Has any great work of God ever risen up without it? Probably not. William Burns was a young intinerate evangelist in Scotland, and was used powerfully of God to stir the church there in the 1800's. When Robert Murray McCheyne took a trip to the Holy Land, Burns filled in the pulpit for a number of weeks, and a genuine revival broke out.
While staying in a home, his prayer habits were observed and recalled: "After touring the district for a few hours, he returned in the evening and went to his room, and while we waited for his coming down stairs to dinner, we heard a heavy groan. Thinking he had been taken ill, Mrs. Thoms, the hostess, ran upstairs and found him lying on his face on the floor groaning before the Lord.
He had gotten such an overwhelming sense of responsibility for the souls of the people, that he could then think of nothing else. In absence of mind he had left his door partially open, which Mrs.Thoms shut; and we did not see him again until late in the evening, when he came for the family worship.
His prayer was one then a continued strain of self-loathing; and pleading for mercy through the blood of the Lamb. It happened that his room was next to mine, and all that night I heard him still groaning in prayer." (Memoirs, page 545-6)
Jesus in the garden prayed with such passion and fervency that an angel appeared to him to strengthen him. His energy was depleted by prayer. It was a physical workout. And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground. Luke 22:43-44
Andrew Bonar, Burn's friend in ministry, commented then that it was "a time that seems to require prayer more than preaching, even, at least I so often feel. And persevering prayerfulness - day by day wrestling and pleading, is harder for the flesh than preaching."
Amy Carmichael said that "prayer is, after all, the most strenuous work in all the world."
Guiles of Assissi (1190 - 1262) said that "whoever gives up prayer because of difficulties is like a man who runs away from battle."
Richard Sibbes, the Puritan preacher, said that "prayer is a kind of wrestling and contending with God, a striving with Him."
Tertullian said that"...when men join together, they offer a holy kind of violence to God."
"To pray with all your heart and strength with the reason, the will, to believe vividly that God will listen to your voice through Christ, and verily do the thing he pleaseth upon – this is the last, the greatest achievement of the Christian’s warfare upon earth. Teach us to pray, Lord." Samuel Coleridge (quoted in Hudson Taylor biography, vol. 2, page 348)
Epaphras....is always wrestling in prayer for you. Colossians 4:12
A prayer of the prophet Habakkuk the prophet. Lord, I have heard of your fame; I stand in awe of your deeds, O Lord. Renew them in our day, in our time make them known; in wrath remember mercy. Habakkuk 3:1-2
"The principal end of prayer is to excite, stir up and draw forth the principle of grace, of faith and love in the heart, unto a due exercise in holy thoughts of God and spiritual things, with affectons suitable unto them." John Owen
John Owen uses the word "exercise," and Paul uses wrestling to describe what he has observed regarding the prayer life of Epaphras. John Owen says that Habakkuk's name means "wrestler or striver, and he seems to have turned that energy into prevailing prayer on behalf of the church in Colossae.
Has any great work of God ever risen up without it? Probably not. William Burns was a young intinerate evangelist in Scotland, and was used powerfully of God to stir the church there in the 1800's. When Robert Murray McCheyne took a trip to the Holy Land, Burns filled in the pulpit for a number of weeks, and a genuine revival broke out.
While staying in a home, his prayer habits were observed and recalled: "After touring the district for a few hours, he returned in the evening and went to his room, and while we waited for his coming down stairs to dinner, we heard a heavy groan. Thinking he had been taken ill, Mrs. Thoms, the hostess, ran upstairs and found him lying on his face on the floor groaning before the Lord.
He had gotten such an overwhelming sense of responsibility for the souls of the people, that he could then think of nothing else. In absence of mind he had left his door partially open, which Mrs.Thoms shut; and we did not see him again until late in the evening, when he came for the family worship.
His prayer was one then a continued strain of self-loathing; and pleading for mercy through the blood of the Lamb. It happened that his room was next to mine, and all that night I heard him still groaning in prayer." (Memoirs, page 545-6)
Jesus in the garden prayed with such passion and fervency that an angel appeared to him to strengthen him. His energy was depleted by prayer. It was a physical workout. And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground. Luke 22:43-44
Andrew Bonar, Burn's friend in ministry, commented then that it was "a time that seems to require prayer more than preaching, even, at least I so often feel. And persevering prayerfulness - day by day wrestling and pleading, is harder for the flesh than preaching."
Amy Carmichael said that "prayer is, after all, the most strenuous work in all the world."
Guiles of Assissi (1190 - 1262) said that "whoever gives up prayer because of difficulties is like a man who runs away from battle."
Richard Sibbes, the Puritan preacher, said that "prayer is a kind of wrestling and contending with God, a striving with Him."
Tertullian said that"...when men join together, they offer a holy kind of violence to God."
"To pray with all your heart and strength with the reason, the will, to believe vividly that God will listen to your voice through Christ, and verily do the thing he pleaseth upon – this is the last, the greatest achievement of the Christian’s warfare upon earth. Teach us to pray, Lord." Samuel Coleridge (quoted in Hudson Taylor biography, vol. 2, page 348)
