More lessons on prayer
"With Christ in the School of Prayer" by Andrew Murray
I wrote the first ten lessons on the book “"With Christ in the School of Prayer" by Andrew Murray that the serving team for our church is currently reading. I shared that the lessons had been particularly impactful because a number of us are in a “school of prayer,” interceding for someone we love dearly. Murray wrote, “it is in intercession that the Church is to find and wield its highest power,” and, “I feel sure that as long as we look on prayer chiefly as the means of maintaining our own Christian life, we shall not know fully what it is meant to be.”
The eleventh and twelfth lessons were challenging to understand, and generated much discussion with our serving team. I delayed writing about them, but was so convicted by the thirteenth and fourteenth lessons that I’ll now address all four recent lessons (because my compulsive nature will not let me skip any!).
Lesson #11: “Believe that you have received.” Murray quotes Jesus in Mark 11:24, “Therefore I say to you, all things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them, and they will be granted you.” He explains, “In one aspect there must be faith before there can be prayer; in another faith is the outcome and growth of prayer.” I’m still struggling with this lesson, but I know the more time I spend in prayer, the more He gives me understanding of His will and a testimony of answered prayer. Part of this lesson is learning the confidence that He answers us, and some answer will come, according to His will and timing. Murray says, “we must find out and know what God’s will is…believing is the exercise of a soul surrendered and given up to the influence of the Word and the Spirit.”
Lesson #12: Have faith in God. Murray recommends, “let faith look to God more than the thing promised.” Prayer is relationship. May we seek relationship with Him in prayer. As we do so, and abide in His word, we will come to better understand Him and His will. May we look at prayer not simply as a means to get something from Him but to come to know Him.
Lesson #13: Prayer and fasting. Now we’re getting to the lessons that inspired me to write today. I hate fasting. I have wondered if I am distracted while fasting whether I am gaining anything in prayer, if that makes sense. Murray helped me here. One does not spend time in private prayer if one does not believe. One will also not fast without faith, and Murray reassures that fasting “becomes the unceasing practical expression of a prayer without words.” Praise God that just as I demonstrate faith by praying, I also demonstrate faith by fasting. Murray also adds, “fasting helps us to express, to deepen, and to confirm the resolution that we are ready to sacrifice anything, to sacrifice ourselves, to attain what we seek for the kingdom of God.”
Lesson #14: “When you stand praying, forgive.” Jesus admonished us this in Mark 11:25. We know Jesus taught us the two greatest commandments were to love God and to love others. Murray admonishes, “Love to God and love to our neighbor are inseparable; the prayer from a heart, that is either not right with God on the one side, or with men on the other, cannot prevail. Faith and love are essential to each other….Not according to what I try to be when praying, but what I am when not praying, is my prayer dealt with by God.”
There are 31 lessons in this book. Every one is powerful. I’m glad to be meditating on them slowly.