Prayer that Enters Beyond the Veil

This week I'm stepping away from Andrew Murray's book and want to share a short quote on prayer by Patrick Reardon for you to meditate on in the Lord's presence to hear what He may want to say to you about His welcome to you through the poured out blood of His Son Jesus, our Elder Brother:

"Our incorporation into Christ is the foundation of all our prayers. Only in Christ do we call God our Father. The only prayer that passes beyond the veil to His very throne is prayer saturated with the redeeming blood of Christ."

When I read this a few days ago, I was struck once again with how costly it was to God for me to have access into His holy presence; taking time to ponder this awakens renewed gratitude in me for such Love that would spill His life freely in order to have me with Him now and forever.

(Scriptures that you can go to along this line are all through the book of Hebrews, but a couple of specific portions are: Hebrews 9:11-28 and 10:19-22.)

God bless you this week and strengthen your heart in His love!

Teach Me to Pray - Week #6

Chapter three is titled "Alone with God" and has to do with our private prayer life.

Taking the words of Jesus about prayer in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 6:6), Murray points out that it's important for the believer to have a time and place for prayer in his/her life. Having just said in the previous chapter that true worship is not about a certain place, he shows in this chapter that Jesus also taught that it's important that we humans pray in designated times and spaces.

Years ago I heard a quote by saint in Church history who said something to this effect: "You will not pray all of the time everywhere unless you pray some of the time somewhere." I've found this to be true; the "unceasing prayer" of I Thess. 5:17 comes through the practice of the "ceasing prayer" of Matt. 6:6.

The times and places for personal prayer will vary immensely from one person to the next; and even in the same person's life, there will be changes to this depending on one's season in life and one's maturity in God. However, I don't believe we ever outgrow the need to find regular time alone with Him of some sort. Healthy human relating bears this out; even in a strong and growing marriage, the couple never outgrows the need to find time to be alone together. How that looks will change from season to season, but the reality that they need to relate alone regularly in order to continue growing together doesn't change.

There is other great stuff in this chapter, but the one point I most want to focus on in this posting is Andrew Murray's emphasis on the ideal "atmosphere" for effective prayer. First, he reiterates that "it is Christ who teaches us to pray", reminding us that we are in His school of prayer; a teacher always wants the classroom to be attractive and appealing so that the student will want to be there, and so our great Teacher desires us to learn to pray in the ideal atmosphere.

In Matthew 6:6-8 Jesus repeats "your Father" three times, and Murray suggests that this is the atmosphere in which true prayer happens - the light of the Father's countenance.

"The first need in private prayer is that we must meet our Father. The light that shines in the prayer closet must be the light of the Father's countenance. The fresh air from heaven with which Jesus would have it filled - the atmosphere in which we are to breathe and pray - is God's Father-love, God's infinite fatherliness. Thus each thought or petition we breathe will be simple, hearty, childlike trust in the Father. This is how the Master teaches us to pray. He brings us into the Father's loving presence. In this atmosphere our prayers will accomplish much."

This is a problem for fallen and sinful humans whose image of the Father is twisted, not only because of weak earthly father models, but also because of our own sin which has distorted our view of God the Father. Without the cleansing and healing work of the cross and the Spirit in us to help us see Him rightly, the idea of God's Father-love being the ideal atmosphere for effective prayer doesn't find agreement in us because the thought of father brings feelings of fear and the need to prove myself rather than the assurance of being fully accepted and confident in His tender affection and goodness.

But Jesus' teachings about the Father and prayer are clear, so it's critical that we seek to know the Father in truth and receive cleansing and healing where necessary in order to have the veil removed from our eyes related to the nature and character of God. Without this open and clear "'atmosphere" of His presence, our prayers are limited in their effectiveness.

Later in the chapter Murray says that we often complain that our personal prayer life is not what it should be because of our weakness and coldness of heart. "But precisely when your heart is cold and prayerless, is when you should go to the loving Father...do not think how little you have to bring God but how much He wants to give to you. Look into His face. Think of His tender, compassionate love. Tell Him how sinful and cold and dark you feel. The Father's loving heart will give you light and warmth..."

I can't stress how important this atmosphere of the Father's smile/countenance (knowing we are loved and accepted by Him) is for confident prayer! If our heart's view of God is distorted, we will tend to cringe and beg without faith as we approach Him in prayer or we will avoid prayer altogether if our focus is on our lack rather than on His abundance of grace and goodness towards us. If we know that He longs to have us come to Him even in our weakness and coldness, then we will confidently approach Him in Jesus, and in His presence we will be cleansed and strengthened and our hearts made tender once again.

To close I'll quote part of Murray's prayer at the end of this chapter and encourage you to pray it as well:

"Blessed Savior, with my whole heart I bless you for the appointment of the quiet place as the school where you meet each of your pupils alone and reveal the Father. My Lord, strengthen my faith in the Father's tender love and kindness so that my first instinctive thought, when sinful or troubled, may be to go where I know the Father waits for me and where prayer never goes unheard..." Lord, would You send Your Spirit to remove the veil from my eyes that keeps me from clear vision of the nature of the Father to want me with Him; may this revelation grow until my first response when I am aware of my lacks and failures is to run to Him rather than away from Him and there find that He is and has all that I need to be more like Him in prayer. Thank You for hearing my prayer...in Jesus' name, Amen.

Teach Me to Pray - Week #5

Chapter two is entitled "The True Worshipers," in which Andrew Murray takes a look at John 4:23,24:

"Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and truth."

The author points out that in this conversation with the Samaritan woman, Jesus spoke of three kinds of worship:

1. The unlearned worship of the Samaritans (vs. 22)
2. The intelligent worship of the Jews (v. 22)
3. The new spiritual worship (v. 23)

Because of the context of Jesus' teaching on true worship in this passage, we can rightly deduce that He's not talking about earnest, sincere prayer and worship. Jesus is contrasting worship that is done in spirit and truth with earnest and sincere worship...

"The Samaritans had the five books of Moses and some knowledge of God; there was doubtless more than one among them who honestly and earnestly sought God in prayer. The Jews had the full revelation of God in His Word as had until then been given; there were among them godly men who called upon God with their whole hearts. But worshiping 'in spirit and truth' was not yet fully realized...it is only in and through Him that the worship of God will be in spirit and truth."

Murray goes on to say that in today's Church can be found three "classes of worshipers":

1. Those who pray earnestly but receive little; in their ignorance they hardly know what they are asking.
   
2. Those who pray with all their mind and heart and with earnestness but don't attain the full blessing; they have more knowledge than the first group related to God and prayer.
3. Those who have been taught by Jesus how to worship in spirit and truth.

To worship "in spirit" means two things (as Jesus teaches in this portion in John 4):

• First, worship is not confined to a certain place or time. "His worship must be the spirit of our life. Our life must be worship in spirit as God is spirit." While we are creatures of time and space and must practice prayer and worship in time and space, it's critical that we grasp the reality that true worship of God is "the spirit of our life." Our set-apart times in certain places should be the overflow of our worship of God throughout the duties of life; but those set-apart times are also meant to strengthen us to worship Him all the time and in all places.
• Second, to worship in spirit means that worship must come from God Himself. God gave us the Holy Spirit for this very purpose - to empower us to love and worship God..."It was when He had made an end of sin and entered into the Holiest of all with His blood, that He there on our behalf received the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:33) and could send Him down to us. It was when Christ had redeemed us and we in Him had received the position of children that the Father sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts to cry 'Abba, Father.' The worship in spirit means the worship of the Father in the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of sonship." Mike Bickle says it this way, "It takes God to love God." In other words, we cannot worship in spirit without the Spirit of God worshiping in and through us.

The author completes the chapter by saying that to worship "in truth" doesn't mean to worship only in sincerity nor only in accordance to the truth of God's Word. It is much more than this because it's bound up in the Person of Jesus who is the Truth. So simply worshiping with right information isn't what is meant by worshiping in truth (although we must study and learn truth about Jesus by the Spirit)..."So worship in the spirit is worship in truth, actual living fellowship with God, with a real correspondence and harmony between the Father, who is a spirit, and the child praying in the Spirit." In other words, if we are truly worshiping in spirit (in union and harmony with the Father), then we are worshiping in truth.

Again Murray calls us to the place of humility and teachableness if we are to learn from Jesus how to pray.

This chapter underscores again the author's primary contention in this book which is that if we are to take hold of all that God intended for His children in prayer, we must be taught how to pray. We can't be content to simply be earnest and sincere in prayer but must ask Jesus to enroll us as students in His school of prayer; and the desire to learn to pray and to keep learning at whatever stage of our journey in God requires an awareness of our need to be taught and deep humility on our part:

"Let there be the deep confession of our inability to give God the worship that is pleasing to Him, the childlike teachableness that waits on Him for instruction, and the simple faith that yields itself to the breath of the Spirit."

Father, what a wonder that You seek worshipers! That leaves us speechless as we pause before You...You own everything and yet You are seeking something: the love and worship of true worshipers! Lord Jesus, once again we ask You to teach us to pray.
"Teach me that spiritual worship is not of man but comes from you; that is not something of times and seasons but rather the outflowing of a life in you. Teach me to draw near to you in prayer with a deep awareness of my ignorance and of my having nothing in myself to offer, and at the same time of the provision that you, my Savior, make for the Spirit's breathing into my childlike stammering. I bless you that in you I am a child and have a child's liberty of access, that in you I have the spirit of sonship and of worship in truth. Teach me, above all, blessed Son of the Father, how it is the revelation of the Father that gives us confidence in prayer. Let the infinite fatherliness of God's heart be my joy and strength for a life of prayer and of worship. Amen."

Lord, Teach Me to Pray - Week #4

In last week's posting, I quoted the prayer of Andrew Murray's at the end of chapter one, and there are three parts of that prayer that I'd like to focus on this week. The following is the entire prayer once again with three portions of it highlighted:

"Blessed Lord, You ever live to pray, and You can teach me to live to pray...Lord Jesus, I confess I do not know how to pray as I ought. Teach me to wait on you and in so doing give you time to train me to pray. May a deep sense of my ignorance, of the wonderful privilege and power of prayer, and of the need of the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of prayer, lead me to surrender my thoughts of what I think I know. Draw me to kneel before You in true teachableness and poverty of spirit.

Fill me, Lord, with confidence that with You as my Teacher, I will learn to pray. With Jesus as my Teacher - He who ever prays to the Father and by His prayer rules the destinies of His church and the world - I need not be afraid. As much as I need to know of the mysteries of the prayer world, you will unfold for me. And when it is not for me to know, You will teach me to be strong in faith, giving glory to God.

Blessed Lord, You will not put to shame Your scholar who trusts You, nor will I by Your grace put You to shame. Amen."

• "Blessed Lord, You ever live to pray, and You can teach me to live to pray..." It's critical that the truth of Jesus' eternal posture as the Great Intercessor become living understanding to us if we are to increasingly prioritize prayer in our lives. Throughout eternity He will do the Father's will through intercession, asking and agreeing with Him (the Father) for His will to be accomplished. This is an amazing thing, the condescension of Jesus to live eternally submitted to His Father, and this dependence is beautifully expressed through His life of intercession. Through the growing understanding that the One with Whom we are united by His Spirit is an Intercessor and through simple submission and obedience to Him, we will be led into a life of prayer. God is mightily at work in these days to bring His Church into her identity as a "house of prayer", which means that His people will move from a posture of "praying to live" to one of "living to pray." The implication of this is that our lives will become structured around prayer, rather than structuring prayer around all the affairs of life. He will accomplish this because He promised and prophesied that His house would be called a "house of prayer."
  

• "May a deep sense of my ignorance, of the wonderful privilege and power of prayer, and of the need of the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of prayer, lead me to surrender my thoughts of what I think I know." Teachableness is another necessary ingredient for our growth in prayer. Murray prays for three things here: "a deep sense of my ignorance", "(a deep sense of) the wonderful privilege and power of prayer", and "(a deep sense of) the need of the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of prayer" in order to be empowered to lay aside all that I think I know about prayer. This is very difficult, especially for those of us who have walked with the Lord a long time and who have genuinely learned from Him. But I'm discovering that if I want to take the next step in understanding prayer, I have to move forward (which implies walking away from where I've been). This doesn't mean that what I've known and experienced is false or wrong but simply that it's not the fullness and that there is much more ahead to learn and experience of God in prayer. I also need to be deeply convinced that prayer is a wonderful privilege (not a chore, though it is work) and is powerful in God. And finally I need a deep humility regarding my absolute need of the Holy Spirit, in order to pray and to grow in prayer.

• "Fill me, Lord, with confidence that with You as my Teacher, I will learn to pray." Murray prays for faith, the confidence that we will learn to pray; and this faith and confidence is ours by virtue of the fact that the One teaching us is the Lord Jesus Himself, and all I have to do is to ask and then obey what He speaks to me about.
  

How do we get to the place of structuring our lives around prayer and the place of teachableness and of confidence? We have so far to go in this that the temptation is to give up before we even start or to do the religious thing. I believe the first thing to do is to simply ask Jesus, "Lord, teach me to pray..." And then keep alert to where He begins to lead you. I encourage you also to ask Him to give you someone else with whom you can pray so that you are developing both your personal prayer life and your corporate prayer life in Him.

Lord Jesus, teach us to pray. You are zealous that we become those who "live to pray", and it's Your zeal that gives us confidence that we will learn to pray and that your Church will become a "house of prayer" as we approach the end of the age...open our eyes to see the fiery zeal in You for this so that faith grows and we increasingly step into the "more" of prayer that You have waiting for us. We love you and acknowledge humbly our absolute need of Your Spirit's power and grace for this great calling to pray. Thank You that You hear us and answer our cry. In the name of the Lord Jesus, the Great Eternal Intercessor. Amen.