Prayer
PRAYER
Establish the Prayer Habit
Psalm 5:3; Luke 11:1-13; Acts 3:1; Ephesians 6:18; Colossians 4:2
The first discipline must be to establish the prayer habit. . . . Fix the habit, even if you have to get up earlier to do it. . . .
Don’t fool yourself into saying that you don’t need the particular time and place, that you will find God all the time and everywhere. If you are to find God all the time, you must find God some time; and if you are to find God everywhere, you will have to find God somewhere. That sometime and somewhere will be the special prayer time and the special prayer place. Fix them. And, as you do, you put your feet upon the road that leads to victory.
Victorious Living
(Week 9, Wednesday)
We Pause to Consider Prayer
Psalm 37:4, 5; Proverbs 3:6; Matthew 18, 19, 20; John 15:7, 16
Let us get rid of certain notions about prayer. Prayer is not a lightning rod to save us from the bolts of God’s wrath. Many think it is; if they don’t pray, something will happen to them. . . . Prayerlessness means slow rot, not sudden calamity.
Again, prayer is not bending God to our wills; it is the bringing of our wills to God’s. When we throw out a boat hook and catch hold of the shore, do we pull the shore to ourselves? Rather we pull ourselves to the shore. Prayer does not pull God to us, it pulls us to God. It aligns our wills with God’s will, so that God can do things through us that could not otherwise be done.
An almighty Will works through our weak wills, and we can do things all out of proportion to our ability. Prayer is, therefore, not overcoming God’s reluctance; it is laying hold of God’s highest willingness. Those who pray link up with the willingness. . . .
In real prayer, our will coincides with God’s. That is what we mean when we pray “in Jesus’ name.” That is, we pray the kind of prayer Jesus would pray. But when we pray “out of God’s will,” we are “forging Jesus’ name to a prayer.”
Victorious Living
(Week 35, Thursday)
2 Samuel 3:25; Psalm 109:4; Luke 21:36; Romans 12:12
In prayer, I seldom ask for things; more and more I ask God for God, for the assurance that my will and God’s are not at cross-purposes, that we are agreed on all major and minor matters. I know, then, if this is so, I shall get all the things I need. . . . If I get God in loving communion, then the prayer is answered and is effective. Things are a side issue. . . .
Prayer is the power to get through difficulties, to be at your best, to become effective. . . . For God, the Eternal God, works with us and in us. Prayer, then, “is the kind of a burden sails are to a ship and wings to a bird.” Then pray, my brothers and sisters, pray, if you want to live victoriously.
Victorious Living
(Week 35, Friday)
Making the Prayer Hour Effective
Psalms 4:4; 24:3-5; Isaiah 64:4; 1 Timothy 4:15
First of all, have the prayer hour. Sacredly keep it. Build the habits of your life around that prayer hour. Make things fit into it, not it into things. People who, neglecting the fixed hour of prayer, say they can pray all the time, will probably end in praying none of the time. . . .
In the beginning of the prayer hour, be silent. Let your mind relax and let it roam across your life to see whether it stops at anything wrong. If so, tell God you will right it. Let the first moment be a sincere moral search. If nothing is shown to be wrong, then, “Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God” (1 John 3:21). We are ready for bold praying.
Then bathe your thought in God’s Word. It will wash the dust from your eyes. Then you will see, have insight. You will get right attitudes through the Word, so you will pray right prayers. You are pulling your thought up alongside of God’s thought, your purposes up to God’s purposes.
Take a pen or pencil with you and write down what comes to you as you pore over the Word. That pen is the sign of your faith that something will come. And it will. . . . “Prayer is a time exposure of the soul to God.” Expose your inmost being to God’s Word.
Take obedience with you into that hour, for you will know as much of God, and only as much of God, as you are willing to put into practice! For God will answer many of your prayers—through you.
Victorious Living
(Week 35, Saturday)
Grow through Obstacles By Prayer
Genesis 32:24-29; Luke 18:1; Acts 12:5; 1 Corinthians 16:9
Here was an obstacle—the madness of his opponents that drove them to counsel what they would do to Jesus. They felt they had the final say. Over against that, Jesus matched prayer. They counseled together as to what they should do to him, and he counseled as to what the Lord should do through him. Prayer made it possible that he should not be a victim of circumstances. He met his circumstances from above.
What will my circumstances do to me today? Rather, what shall I do today through my circumstances by prayer? Again, here are my limitations, and they conspire to cramp me, to keep me from being effectivee. . . .
What shall my enemies do with me? Rather, what shall I do with my enemies through prayer? I shall have power to forgive them, I meet them from above. . . .
You grow by the meeting of an obstacle, not merely through the obstacle, but through prayer induced by that very obstacle.
Victorious Living
(Week 46, Sunday)
The Seventh Step
Mark 1:35-36; Acts 10:9; Ephesians 6:18; 1 Thessalonians 5:17
Many feel that they can live in a state of prayer, without stated times for prayer. This is a mistake.
Jesus felt the need of three simple habits: (a) he stood up to read, “as his custom was” (Luke 4:16); (b) he went out into the mountain to pray, “as was his custom” (Luke 22:39); (c) he taught them again, “as he was wont” (Mark 10:1 KJV). These three simple habits: reading and meditating upon the Word of God; exposing oneself to God at the prayer hour; and teaching others—passing on what we have found—are as basic in the spiritual life as two plus two equal four are in mathematics. If Jesus couldn’t get along without them, how do we hope to do so?
In the pure strong hour of the morning, when the soul of the day is at its best, best, lean upon the windowsill of the Lord and look into his face, and get orders for the day. Then go out into the world with a sense of a hand upon your shoulder and not a chip. (Source Unknown)
Start the day right, and you will end it right.
Abundant Living
(Week 4, Saturday)
Psalm 143:10; Matthew 26:42; 2 Corinthians 12:7-10
But the idea of surrender cuts across the usual idea of prayer as a method of obtaining from God your wishes. That idea is self-assertion. This is self-surrender.
Then is prayer passive submission? A denial of the will to live? Is it the will to die? Far from it. Prayer is a will to die on the level of a defeated, empty, ineffective, short-circuited life, and a will to live on the level of a victorious, full, effective, and cosmic-connected life. It is self-renunciation in order to find self-realization. Your petty self is renounced in order that your potential self might be realized. Prayer is the wire surrendering to the dynamo, the flower surrendering to the sun, the child surrendering to education, the patient surrendering to the surgeon, the part surrendering to the whole—prayer is life surrendering to Life.
Abundant Living
(Week 33, Sunday)
Prayer: The Greatest Single Power
Psalms 27:14; 30:2; Luke 11:1; James 5:16
The art of prayer must be learned, for reservoirs of power are at our disposal if we can learn this art. “If we learn it”—that is the rub. People expect results without any practice of the art.
Abundant Living
(Week 33, Wednesday)
Further Steps in Prayer
Psalms 46:1-2, 10; 55:22; 62:5
Still the mind. Just as the moon cannot reflect well on a restless sea, so God cannot get to an unquiet mind. “Be still, and know” (Ps 46:10); be unstill, and you do not know; God cannot get to you. In the stillness, the prayer itself may be corrected. For God not only answers prayer, but also corrects prayer and makes it more answerable. One night, I bowed my head in silent prayer before a sermon and whispered to God, “O God, help me.” Very quickly came back the reply: “I will do something better; I will use you.”
Abundant Living
(Week 33, Friday)
The Final Steps of Prayer
Psalms 40:1; 121:7-8; 1 Peter 5:10; 1 John 3:16-18
Prayer is the working out of what God works in.
Remember that no is answer, as well as yes. . . . God often holds off to deepen our characters, so that we won’t be spiritual crybabies if we don’t get everything at once. . . .
Prayer is . . . the opening of a channel from your emptiness to God’s fullness.
Abundant Living
(Week 33, Saturday)
A Sense of Mission and Submission
Isaiah 6:1-9; John 20:21; Acts 8:29
Whenever I stand up to preach, I ask the audience to bow their heads in prayer; and I invariably remind God of my verse, a verse given to me years ago at the very beginning of my ministry: “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you” (John 15:16 KJV).
Repeating this verse gives me the sense of being sent, of having the backing of the Eternal, and of speaking in a Name not my own. But it does another thing: It lays on me the sense of obligation to surrender to and be obedient to the working out of this plan. It gives life a sense of mission and submission.
Abundant Living
(Week 36, Friday)
“Cultivate the Quiet Time”
Psalms 25:12; 27:4; 119:147
Cultivate the Quiet Time—preferably in the morning. We have talked about Christianizing your relationships; we come now to the central relationship, your relationship with God. When that relationship is intact, then every other relationship is toned up. If that relationship gets loose, then every other relationship goes loose with it. For the Christian, there is one responsibility and only one responsibility:—to keep in union with God. When that union with God is intact, everything flows from it. I know of no one thing that creates union with God more surely and constantly than the regular practice of the Quiet Time. If I have a Quiet Time, I have a quiet heart; but if the Quiet Time goes, the quiet heart goes with it. I can take it or leave it, but that is one of life’s inexorables.
Close your eyes, drop into the silence of the heart, and then listen to God tell you how much time you can spend in the Quiet Time. Take the figure that fixes itself in your mind with a sense of approval, and start it. Pray by the clock. If it starts being mechanical, it will soon become medicinal; it will heal you at the heart.
The Way
(Week 12, Thursday)
Don’t Fight Your Fears, Surrender Them
John 6:20-21; 12:15
Learn the art of prayer, for fears dissolve in an atmosphere of prayer.
The Way
(Week 14, Thursday)
Luke 11:9-13
Prayer is cooperation with God. In prayer you align your desires, your will, your life to God. You and God become agreed on life desires, life purposes, life plans, and you work them out together. That is prayer. Prayer, then, is not trying to get God to do our will. It is the getting of our will into line with God’s will. But the will is not a separate portion of us; the will is the self in action. So prayer aligns the whole self to the whole Self of God.
The Way
(Week 29, Sunday)
To Rise Up as One Imperishable
Matthew 14:23; 17:20; Luke 9:29
[Prayer is Reality.] I know that when I pray, I’m better; when I don’t, I’m worse. I touch life with a perishable touch when I touch it without prayer; but when I do pray, then I touch life with an imperishable touch. If you don’t have a quiet time in the morning, you’ll probably have an unquiet time at night.
The Way
(Week 30, Wednesday)
Prayer Is Receptivity
Luke 11:9-10; John 15:4, 16
Prayer is Receptivity. To put the first two together: Prayer is Receptivity to Reality. God the infinite Reality, is pervading us and invading us. The pathway over which God comes to the center of our being and purposes is receptivity. . . . Receptivity is the surrendering of all fears, all doubts, all inhibitions, especially all self; for the ego, even in God’s presence, asserts itself, wants to be God. It must be surrendered.
The Way
(Week 30, Thursday)
Prayer Is Response
Acts 3:2-4; 14:8-10
Prayer is Response. If prayer were only receptivity it would leave us leaning too much to the passive side. It will leave us in an attitude of taking without undertaking. The taking of God must produce undertaking for God. . . .
Prayer is creative. When our lesser life touches Life it becomes alive, alive to the fingertips. . . .
Prayer is a form of energy, for those who pray do not waste energy in fussy activity—a running around in circles, getting nowhere fast. The poised, prayerful heart is sure of its directions, is sure of its resources, and moves from task to task with calm confidence. The prayerless are hurried, flurried, worried. They wear themselves out with frictions. . . .
O God, wake us up to Jesus. Give us his passion for prayer and his passion for people. May our needs drive us to you and the needs of others drive us to them. For we have discovered a working force. Amen.
The Way
(Week 30, Friday)
Prayer Is Renewal
Romans 12:2; Ephesians 3:14-19
Prayer is Renewal. Like a watch, life has a tendency to run down. It needs rewinding. Prayer rewinds the springs of life. . . . Prayer brings resources. . . .
It is so easy to get lost in the world. I come to the prayer hour to find myself and my directions again. Prayer is the period of circling, like the homing pigeon, circling to gain a homeward direction. To prayer we come, turning round and round on ourselves. From prayer we go with the homeward direction in the heart. The wings no longer hesitate for the heart is sure. . . .
Prayer is a lift-up with no let-down, for it is no mere shot-in-the-arm, a stimulant. It is a renewal, a renewal of resources. For in prayer you have a life transfusion. You are God-infused.
The Way
(Week 30, Saturday)
Steps toward a Real Prayer Life
1 Timothy 2:1-2; 8; James 5:13-16
Fall in love with God, and you’ll know what to say [in prayer]. “Religion is a long falling in love with God.” But love needs to be cultivated. It is not always “love at first sight.” Love often comes through insight, insight gained over a long period of contact [with God].
The Way
(Week 31, Thursday)
Quiet Prayer Unbinds Us
Luke 11:1-4
The fact is no dramatic experience can take the place of quiet prayer. If it is not followed by quiet prayer, then the experience will fade out and be inoperative. No experience is proof against prayerlessness. . . . Nothing can kill our experience of God so decisively as prayerlessness. Nothing can unbind you and let you go so wonderfully as a daily time spent in prayer. . . .
I find I’m better or worse as I pray more or less. “Little prayer, little victory; much prayer, much victory; no prayer, no victory.”
For in prayer you align yourself to the purposes and power of God, and God is able to do things through you that God couldn’t otherwise do. For this is an open universe, where some things are left open, contingent upon our doing them. If we do not do them, they will never be done. So God has left certain things open to prayer, things that will never be done except as we pray. It is, not a closed universe, but one open to the praying heart.
I sat one day in meditation and the question came: “If God would offer to give you one thing—and only one thing—what would you ask?” After a moment’s thought, I replied: “Give me a prayerful heart.” I have thought about it a good deal since then, and I’ve come to the conclusion that I could ask nothing better. For if I have the prayerful heart, all else follows.
The Way to Power and Poise
(Week 47, Tuesday)
The Sovereign Cure for Worry
Luke 11:5-8
Religious faith cannot be sustained without prayer. So prayer is at the heart of religious faith. As Mahatma Gandhi said, “Without prayer I would have been a lunatic long ago.” If the years have left no scars on me, except radiant scars, it is that prayer has been my refuge and my strength.
The Way to Power and Poise
(Week 47, Wednesday)
Prayer Cancels Loneliness
Psalm 69:14, 17, 20
Someone has said, “Prayer cancels loneliness.” It does, for it brings you into fellowship with God, and in fellowship with God there can be no loneliness. But prayer just for yourself will not cancel loneliness. It may aggravate it if you are thinking only of yourself. But if you bring the needs and sorrows of others into your prayer hours, then that cancels loneliness.
How to Be a Transformed Person
(Week 27, Thursday)
To Make the Quiet Time Effective
Isaiah 64:1, 4
If you are to pray always, there must be a specific time for the cultivation of such a spirit of continuous prayer. You cannot pray everywhere unless you pray somewhere. You cannot maintain the spirit of prayer unless you take off specific time or times for prayer. It will fade out. So take these steps:
1. Decide on the amount of time you can give to the Quiet Time, preferably in the morning. The morning is the best; it tunes your instrument [you] for the day.
2. Having fixed the time, stick to it. Pray by the clock, whether or not you feel like it.
3. Take your Bible and read a portion slowly. Let it soak in. If some verse strikes you, let your mind circle around it in meditation. It will render up new meanings to you. Write them in a notebook or on the margin of your Bible.
4. After the reading, let go and relax and say to God, “Lord, have you anything to say to me?” Begin to listen. Become guidable.
5. Then you say to God what you have to say. Prayer is dialogue, not a monologue.
6. Thank God for the answer. God always answers yes or no. No is an answer as well as Yes, sometimes a better answer. The answer sometimes may be in you—you are better for having prayed—you are the answer. In the Quiet Time, you become the focal point of transmission for transformation.
How to Be a Transformed Person
(Week 40, Wednesday)
I Just Want to Look at You
Luke 9:28-29
The Quiet Time is a period of just gazing at the face of Christ. Prayer is a time exposure to God. If no prayers are made or answered, nevertheless it is worthwhile for you become like that at which you gaze. You are made one degree more Christlike by your Christ-gaze. A little fellow came into his father’s study, and the father asked him what he wanted, and the boy replied: “I don’t want anything. I just want to look at you.” So the boy sat and gazed into his beloved father’s face and in the process became more like him. We often say “Prayer changes things”; it does, but more important, prayer changes the pray-er into the image of the face he or she gazes on.
How to Be a Transformed Person
(Week 50, Wednesday)
Doesn’t Know How to Mourn
1 John 5:13-15
[My friend “Mary” wrote:] “Prayer always works in reverse with me. It should make me quiet and restful, but it always makes me feel that I have been injected with a tremendous dose of vitality, and I feel like going out and doing something about everything.”
Growing Spiritually
(Week 31, Thursday)
Growth in Prayer
Matthew 6:5-6
We come now to an important area of growth, growth in prayer. This perhaps is the most important. I find I am better or worse as I pray more or less. Prayer tones up the whole of life. I can never be better in life than I am faithful in prayer. If prayer lags, life sags. If we know how to pray, we know how to live; if not, then we exist, we don’t live . . . .
Many think of themselves as reservoirs with a certain fixed capacity. If we are people of prayer, we are not reservoirs, but channels. We are attached to infinite resources and therefore have boundless possibilities.
Growing Spiritually
(Week 42, Sunday)
Matthew 7:7-8
The person of prayer in touch with the very magnetism of Christ becomes magnetized and magnetizes others in tum. But break the connection, and that person is very ordinary steel without attraction. Prayer is the connection; break that, and you break all.
And yet many go through life prayerless, except for a crisis when they get into trouble. Then they pray. And they wonder why God doesn’t immediately pull them out, making God a cosmic grandfather! If you don’t pray in the regular, you have no right to call on God in the irregular. . . . [When we don’t pray regularly,] we run out of resources, get irritable, and say and do things concerning which we have to repent and apologize. If we had taken time for prayer, we could have saved time, the time we take in undoing the messes we get into. . . .
Prayer deepens and heightens life.
Growing Spiritually
(Week 42, Monday)
Prayer Is Cooperation with God
Matthew 9:28-29
Prayer is cooperation with God. It is the purest exercise of the faculties God has given us, an exercise that links these faculties with the Maker to work out the intentions God had in mind in their creation. Prayer is aligning ourselves with the purposes of God. Prayer isn’t bending God to our wills, but our bending of our wills to God’s will. If prayer is the purest exercise of our faculties, it is also the most natural. For when we cooperate with God in prayer, then we are working out God’s intention inherent in the very structure of our beings. We do what we are made to do, made to do by our very make-up. Prayer, then, makes us natural by our very contact with the Supernatural. We work out the purposes God has worked into us. Prayer, then, is the fulfillment of our very beings. In prayer we become supernaturally natural. . . .
Prayer aligns us with God and therefore with ourselves. . . . Prayer makes us stop fighting and makes us cooperate. Then infinite power works through our finiteness; an infinite mind thinks through our finite minds, and infinite love loves through our finite love.
Growing Spiritually
(Week 42, Tuesday)
By Small Accomplishing Great
Luke 11:1-4
Prayer means we are striking the same notes that God is striking. We thus become a part of a universal harmony, the music of the spheres. Our little notes are caught up and universalized. Prayer put us in tune with the infinite.
Growing Spiritually
(Week 42, Wednesday)
Hebrews 4:16; James 5:16
Prayer is a means, but as often it is an end in itself. . . .
I have often said that the phrase I most often repeat to the Lord is this one: “Lord, you’ve got me.” That phrase is still basically there and is repeated again and again, but there is another one that is in ascendancy, being repeated oftener: “Lord, I love you, I love you, I love you.” It has become a refrain.
Growing Spiritually
(Week 43, Monday)
A Peg on Which to Hang My Gratitude
Psalm 37:4-5
When we have prayer as communion, we can fill in the hours and moments with quiet peace. I’ve learned the habit through long practice of dropping into the heart in prayer whenever I’m compelled to wait for an elevator, a friend, or an engagement. I head off the possible resentment and impatience by forestalling it with prayer. I occupy the conflict moment with a communion moment. The destructive is pushed out, and the constructive comes in. . . .
And that communion, often wordless, more often turns to thanksgiving. Yesterday, I thanked the Lord for a peg on which to hang my coat. And then I said to myself, “I’m always hunting for pegs on which to hang my gratitude, and I find so many.” I find myself thanking God for everything; for everything furthers you deeper into God if you will let it. As someone has said, “Never face a trouble without first thanking God for it.” And then the trouble is no longer a mere trouble, it is an opportunity for victory through the trouble. Paul puts it this way, “Rejoice at all times” (1 Thess 5:15 Moffat). And the secret of rejoicing at all times is the next, “Never give up prayer” (v. 17). And the outcome is, “Thank God for everything” (v.18). If you are in a constant state of prayer, you can “rejoice at all times” and “thank God for everything.” Your heart is a fountain of thankful rejoicing.
Growing Spiritually
(Week 43, Tuesday)
Thou Art the Breeze; Blow On
John 14:13-14
In order to grow in prayer set a framework of devotional life. Set aside a certain amount of time for prayer each day. Pray by the clock. If you say, “I’ll pray everywhere at all times, but at no specific time,” my prediction will be that you’ll probably end by praying nowhere at any time. You’ll not be able to sustain the “everywhere” except by a “somewhere,” nor “all times” except by a “specific time.”
Take your Bible into your prayer time. . . . The Word of God will let you look into the face of Jesus as the first thing you see in beginning your prayer time. Then become silent before him and let him speak. Repeat the Chinese hymn: “I am the grass, Thou art the Breeze; blow on.” Then pour out your unfinished business into his lap and ask for guidance. And believe the guidance will be given.
Growing Spiritually
(Week 43, Friday)
I’ve Always Had Tasks I Couldn’t Do
Ephesians 3:20-21
People have asked me what is the secret of my life. I have invariably replied, “If there is any secret, it is in these two things: I have kept my prayer life intact, and I’ve always had tasks I couldn’t do.”
I knew I couldn’t do them; they were too big for my inadequacies. So I’ve offered my inadequacies to God by surrender and have taken God’s Adequacy by receptivity. It is so simple and effective.
Mastery
(Week 24, Friday)
The Mastery of Prayer
Luke 11:1-13
We come now to consider . . . the mastery of prayer. The mastery of the art of prayer is life’s most important mastery. It can be summed up in one sentence: If we know and practice the art of prayer, we know and practice the art of living; if we don’t know that art, then we don’t know the art of living. To pray is to penetrate, to penetrate through this physical encasement into the spiritual world of light and power and to live within this physical encasement by that spiritual light and power. We live in two worlds at once: the physical world is interpenetrated by the spiritual and lifted to a new level of life. We can live literally by resources not our own; we can live by Another.
But while prayer is life’s most wonderful resource, it can be twisted and turned into all sorts of things. First, into a formula. A minister’s wife expounded at length on the beauty of the prayer book they used and then added, “Do you really think that God answers prayer?” She thought of prayer as a formula but not as a fact. Does God answer prayer? The answer is that, just as God has made an open universe contingent upon our action—so that things won’t be done unless we do them—so God has left certain things open to prayer—things that won’t be done unless we pray.
This is a universe of law and order, yet it is an open universe; things can happen within this universe if we decide to do them. The spiritual universe is also one of law and order and an open universe, open to cooperation with God for new things to happen. These are things that God wants to happen, but God can’t let them without our cooperation. Prayer is cooperation with God, cooperating in carrying out unfinished creative purposes. God wants us to help finish an unfinished universe. So in prayer, we do not have to overcome God’s reluctance; we only have to cooperate with God’s highest willingness. Anything that ought to happen can happen to the one who prays. That person has linked with divine purposes and has, therefore, divine power at his or her disposal for human living. The person of prayer is the person of power.
Mastery
(Week 42, Sunday)
They Did the Most Incredible Things
Luke 9:28-31
Laws govern prayer as laws govern the universe. What are they? The people in the Acts evidently were guided by them, for they did an incredible thing. It was not telling lame men to walk and dead people to arise; it was infinitely more incredible. It was nothing less than accomplishing in a short space of thirty years something that philosophers and lawgivers and moralists had attempted for ages with little success. They lifted humanity onto a new plane of living and introduced into society the basic changes upon which humanity has lived ever since. They did the most difficult thing that has ever been done. And they did it with incredible ease, without strain and without drain; for they didn’t do it; they let God do it through them. They did it through prayer.
Then we turn to the exciting adventure of seeing just how they used prayer and just how they did not use it. For this didn’t just happen. It happened because they put themselves in line with God’s purposes.
The Acts of the Apostles gives an account of the use of prayer that is the cleanest, the sanest, the wisest, and the most powerful ever seen on our planet—yes, ever. . . .
First of all, they had seen prayer in Jesus. Jesus had cleansed prayer for them. After he cleansed it, he used it and used it mightily. In three great crises he prayed. First, at his baptism, and as a result the Spirit descended upon him “like a dove.” Prayer brought the Holy Spirit. Second, he prayed at the transfiguration, and as a result he stood transfigured. Prayer made him luminous, showed what the material can be. Then third, he prayed when he was accomplishing the end for which he came, the atonement for sin. When he prayed, “Father, forgive them” (Luke 23:34 CEB), God could forgive because Jesus was dying for them that they might be forgiven. He answered his own prayer by making it possible for God to forgive.
Mastery
(Week 42, Monday)
Prayer for One Thing: the Holy Spirit
Luke 24: 45-49
Prayer in the Book of Acts was not primarily for things—for success, for healing, for power—prayer was a person wanting a Person. Prayer was wanting that Person so much that they were willing to surrender everything, including themselves especially, if only that Person would come in and take over. The Holy Spirit did, and how! “They were all filled with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:4 CEB). The hands of God were untied; God could do anything, everything, for people who didn’t want anything except for God to come in and take over.
What a corrective to a great deal of modern praying, which makes prayer into a success cult, a healing cult, an ego-expanding cult! All this is making ourselves the center; we’re using God. Prayer is prostituted. People try to capture the holy to serve them. Here God is the center. Humanity is surrendered to God. That is the right relationship. Anything can now happen.
Mastery
(Week 42, Tuesday)
Not for Safety but for Boldness
Philippians 1:12-14
As time goes on, I find myself praying less and less for things and more and more for God. For if I have God, I have everything—yes, everything—I need and more.
“And now, Lord, look upon their threats, and grant to thy servants to speak thy word with all boldness” (4:29). Here again prayer, was not for their needs but for the needs of others; they prayed for boldness to witness to others. God was first, others were second, and they were third. Prayer breaks the tyranny of self-preoccupation, absorbs you with God, and makes you interested in others. It is freeing. And it is inherent.
Mastery
(Week 42, Thursday)
Conclusions Regarding Prayer
Philippians 1:3-5, 9-11
In the Acts of the Apostles, prayer had been redeemed. From being a self-concerned act of getting benefits for oneself, it became the agent of a glorious redemption. Everywhere prayer was love in action through God. People were reaching out through God to touch others redemptively. In the process, prayer itself was redeemed. It was turned out instead of in; except in one instance, when they prayed for the Holy Spirit for themselves. Then we can pray all out for ourselves. For if Spirit comes, he takes over the self. Prayer then is not for us but for One to control and guide and use the self.
Then is there no place in prayer for our own personal needs? Is that ruled out? No, they are provided for, but indirectly.
Mastery
(Week 43, Sunday)
The Power of the Lord Was with Him to Heal
James 4:3-6
But prayer, which is often advocated today as a means of curing oneself of one’s own ills, can be wholly wrong. It can add to one’s self-preoccupation, using prayer for one’s own purposes. Prayer has therapeutic, or healing, value only if it loosens you from self-preoccupation and gets you interested in something beyond yourself.
When Jesus spent all night in prayer to the Lord, the next morning the “power of the Lord was with him to heal” (Luke 5:17 RSV).
The all-night prayer meant the all-morning power and power to heal in two directions. It kept Jesus whole and made others whole. Our needs are automatically guaranteed if we let prayer carry us beyond ourselves. The self is lost in others and found in itself.
Mastery
(Week 43, Monday)
Maturity in the Life of Prayer
Luke 18:1; 11:1
One of the things the Spirit within helps us to find is maturity in the prayer life: “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words. And he who searches the hearts of men knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God” (Rom 8:26-27). Here we find Paul putting his finger on the central point of our “weakness,” weakness in prayer life. And because we are weak in our prayer life, we are weak in maturity. If the prayer life is immature the whole life is immature. For prayer is the central resource for maturity in any person’s life. And there is no exception. If we are weak in prayer, we are weak—full stop. If we are strong in prayer, we are strong—full stop.
As I travel through the world and get in contact with men and women of all races, I find that the greatest source of weakness in character and influence is to be found in the prayer life. Most of the casualties in the spiritual life are found at the place of a weakened prayer life. When the prayer life is toned up, the whole of the rest of the life is toned up with it. Prayer is pivotal. I find I am better or worse as I pray more or less. If prayer fades, power fades. . . . In prayer our weakness is linked to Almightiness, our ignorance linked to Infinite Wisdom, our finite self to the Infinite Self.
Christian Maturity
(Week 44, Sunday)
Prayer Is Self-Surrender
Matthew 26:38-39
[In 1 John 5:14-15,] “anything” and “whatever” are qualified by “if we ask . . . according to his will.” That phrase is all-important, for without it prayer can become illusion. I can ask anything, and if I only have faith enough I will get it. My faith is the qualifying factor. That has caused an enormous amount of confusion and disillusionment. It has turned prayer into magic, the magic wand is faith. Wave that wand of faith over situations, and miracles happen! When we believe that faith is the only condition, we have missed the point. “According to his will” is the basic condition. Exercise faith within that condition and anything can and does happen.
But that condition defines prayer. Prayer is self-surrender. Not merely the surrender to the will of God of the thing for which we are praying, but deeper still; it means the surrender of the person who is praying to the will of God. And not a surrender of the person in reference to the particular thing at issue; it means a permanent surrender as a life attitude. When that is done, we are free to ask “anything” and God pledges “whatever” we ask! A freedom in prayer comes as a result of this losing of one’s life into the will of God.
Christian Maturity
(Week 44, Monday)
Everything Seems Ordinary, Except . . .
Acts 4:13-14
Prayer is surrender and, consequently, receptivity. The unsurrendered person cannot receive. She withholds the inmost self and hence blocks the receptivity. He does not give; hence he cannot receive. When Jesus touched the dumb man who could not speak, he did not touch his tongue first, he touched his ears first (Mark 7:32-35). . . . When the receptivity became normal the activity became normal. Prayer as self-surrender clears the way for receptivity and hence for an amazing activity. The first law of life is receptivity; the second law of life is activity. Prayer is both.
Christian Maturity
(Week 44, Tuesday)
The Pull Has Gone
Acts 3:5-8
We know prayer does something for the pray-er: aligns us to the will of God, brings everything into focus, and adds a plus to all we do and says and are. But does prayer really influence things outside the individual?
We know that telepathy is a fact. One mind can influence another mind, and the distance doesn’t seem to matter. If one person can influence another person across distances—can throw a thought into the other’s mind, give the will a gentle push, and change the emotions—then why couldn’t God and us, working together, influence persons and situations for good? For instance, at one of our Ashrams, a woman said that for twenty years she had been praying for her husband to become a Christian, but no response. We went into the chapel together and knelt and prayed for him to become a Christian. When she got home a week later, this was the first thing he said to her: “While you have been away I’ve decided to become a Christian. I’m joining the church next Sunday.” Coincidence? Perhaps, but perhaps not!
Christian Maturity
(Week 44, Thursday)
What Is Mortal Sin?
Mark 3:22-24
We are invited to pray for our brothers and sisters, and “God will give him life for those whose sin is not mortal” (1 John 5:16). This invites us to intercessory prayer for others, and God has promised to give “life” to the one prayed for. This is a wide-open invitation and gives us infinite possibilities in influencing others. This is the highest kind of prayer, for it is the most unselfish. You are praying not for this thing, that thing, or the other thing for a particular person; you are praying for “life” for that person. And you can always pray with faith for “life” for people, since that is what Jesus came to give: “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly” (John 10:10). So to pray for “life” for people is to pray in line with the purpose of his coming.
We are mature to the degree that we are mature in prayer, and we are mature in prayer to the degree that our prayer becomes intercessory prayer, and our intercessory prayer is mature to the degree that it asks for “life” for the one prayed for. When we stand before God, like the high priest, with the name of our brother or sister written on our heart, then we are really praying.
Christian Maturity
(Week 44, Saturday)
Conversion Is Conversion to Receptivity
Galatians 3:11-14
Prayer is receptivity. Its attitude is this: “Speak, LORD, for thy servant hears” (1 Sam 3:9). Many think of prayer as: “Listen, Lord, for thy servant speaks.” This attitude is like that of the reporter who sees the president, with ten minutes for the interview. The reporter talks glibly for nine minutes and then says: “Mr. President, if you have anything to say to me, please say it.” We do that with God. Our first attitude should be to listen, then request.
Christian Maturity
(Week 46, Saturday)
Surrender in General, Obey in Particular
We now come to the crux of our verse: “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you will, and it shall be done for you” (John 15:7). The crux is in the if. The if covers two conditions—“abide in me, and my words abide in you.” If you surrender to Christ in general—“abide in me,” and if you obey Christ in particular—“my words abide in you,” then the door is open to Christ’s everything; ask whatever you will and it shall be done for you. This is the most limiting and yet the most unlimited conception of prayer ever propounded: limited to two conditions and limited to no conditions. He binds us and then frees us, frees us to ask anything! If you fulfill the first two conditions, then you will ask only what he would approve and will receive only what he knows is good for you—the best for you.
Does God answer all prayers? Some say yes, but the answer is no! God cannot, by the very divine nature, answer prayers of those who do not abide in God and in whom God’s words do not abide. They would pray apart from the Spirit; and whatever is apart from the Holy Spirit is apart from our good, for whatever is good in God is good for us. God’s will is our wealth.
Here prayer is put on its highest level; every prayer prayed in the spirit of Jesus is answered. That cleanses prayer and consummates prayer. “Love God and do what you like,” could be amended: “Love Jesus Christ and ask what you like,” for you will ask the things he likes.
This cleanses prayer from all self-reference; “the answers are within you,” for they are not; they are in Christ. It cleanses prayer from “much speaking,” for you are not answered for your persistence, but by meeting these two conditions.
In Christ
(Week 17, Thursday)
You do not find the new life in Christ through discipline, but you cannot keep it without it. The daily quiet time spent in reading the Bible and prayer, the reading of the best books, the sharing with others—all these are a part of the process of being developed. We trust as if the whole thing depended on God, but we work as if the whole thing depended on us.
In Christ
(Week 40, Monday)
Speeches by Way of Prayers
Luke 18:9-14
Jesus . . . gave the Lord’s Prayer, which is prayer reduced to its simplest and profoundest form; all adjectives squeezed out, where the words and reality coincide and are one. The self-regarding emphasis is precluded by the first word, “Our.” So the prayer is self-purifying by its very nature.
And to remind his disciples of the very necessity of making the prayer an embodiment of attitudes toward others, Jesus turned back and said, “But if you don’t forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your sins” (Matt 6:15 CEB). Prayer is the word of request become flesh, or it is mere words. So real prayer to God is a revelation of our attitudes toward others.
The Word Became Flesh
(Week 22, Friday)
Jesus Christ Means to Me First of All Redemption
1 Corinthians 1:30-31
A Hindu said to a friend of mine, “I believe in prayer, but it is a very deep belief on the part of us Hindus that prayer cannot do anything about the past; the past must be paid for now or in a coming reincarnation.” But the prayer of repentance and surrender to Jesus Christ did something about the past; it was gone, wiped out as though it belonged to another person, now dead, a new one alive in that person’s place.
The Word Became Flesh
(Week 52, Monday)