Monday: They Did the Most Incredible Things
WEEK 42
MONDAY
THEY DID THE MOST INCREDIBLE THINGS
Luke 9:28-31
We saw yesterday that 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. There isn’t a misstep in regard to prayer in the whole account or a missed emphasis. It is all sound, as sound as a bell.
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,” 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.
O Jesus, your life was behind that prayer, your life laid down. Therefore, you did the incredible; you redeemed a race. We are at your feet; you have us wholly. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: I shall do incredible things through prayer, for I do not do them. He does.