Teach Me to Pray - Final Week (#34): A Life of Prayer

"Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances." I Thessalonians 5:16-18

In the final chapter of Murray's book, Teach Me to Pray, he summarizes his teaching with the challenge to a life of prayer. Early in this book Murray spoke of Jesus "living to pray" (Heb. 7:25) and made the statement that because Jesus lives to pray, He can teach His followers to live to pray as well.

One of my greatest desires is to see a shift take place among God's people from a mindset of "praying to live" to a mindset of "living to pray." In other words, we orientate our life with the goal of effective prayer rather than orientating our life with prayer simply as a means to a better life. I'm asking the Lord to do this in me first of all and to do this for His Church at large. I'm convinced that the Holy Spirit is doing this in these days as I hear many people testify to how prayer is becoming much more important to them than before.

There is a vast difference between praying to live and living to pray. The Holy Spirit says through Peter in I Peter 4:7 that "the end of all things is near; therefore, be serious and discipline yourselves for the sake of your prayers..." This is a startling word! When I was younger in my walk with God, I thought that I needed to pray in order to be disciplined; but here the Lord says that I need to be disciplined in order to pray. This makes prayer the number one objective in one's life.

Because real prayer is perhaps the hardest thing to do, it requires that I order my practical life so that I can be alert and effective in prayer. This gets down to hard decisions about how I spend my days and what I give my time and energy to. It boils down to putting prayer into my schedule as priority, making everything else fall into place around it rather than tacking prayer onto my day as something I hope to fit into my schedule.

It's like giving money to the Lord. If I wait to see if I have enough left over to give to God after I've taken care of everything else, it's more likely that I won't have any left for Him. But if I make Him the priority in my finances (which means giving to Him first before the other needs are cared for), then I discover that I have enough for those needs.

Prayer is a form of giving of my time to God. If I make Him priority in my time (which means giving to Him of my time before I give my time to other needs), then I discover that there is time enough for other needs in my life.

Murray's challenge in this chapter is to become people of prayer who serve rather than people of service who pray. As this mindset begins to take hold in us and the ordering of our day falls into line with this, we will discover that we are praying all the time everywhere (as we are admonished to do in I Thess. 5:17). We become praying people by prioritizing making time for conscious prayer.

I've quoted before from a saint in the distant past who said, "You will never pray all the time everywhere until you have prayed some of the time somewhere." In other words, without our calendar being affected by prayer, we cannot hope to become one who prays continually. God longs to meet with us regularly when we are giving Him the best time of our day and our attention. As we do this in an ongoing way, over time we will be delighted with the discovery that we are in communion with Him night and day.

Every person and circumstance has its peculiarities, so I suggest that you seek the Lord about how this should look for you. He is gracious and so wants a unique prayer life with us that He will help and patiently lead each of us. All we need is to have a strong enough desire and grace to obey His leading.

In closing I'll quote Murray: "Where the child of God truly lives and walks in the Spirit, where he is not content to remain carnal, but seeks to be spiritual, in everything a fit organ for the divine Spirit to reveal the life of Christ and Christ himself, there the never-ceasing intercession life of the blessed Son is revealed and then repeats itself in our experience.

"...our true aim must not be to work more, or to pray enough to keep the work on track, but to pray more and then work enough for the power and blessing obtained in prayer to find its way through us to others."

Lord, thank You for Andrew Murray and the gift of this book to us today. We cry out to you again and again that You would put within us the prayer that Your early disciples prayed: "Teach us to pray, Lord." Would you pour out Your Spirit upon us and strengthen desire within us to be a people of prayer who move according to what we have heard and seen in communion and union with You. Raise up a people at the end of the age who are characterized by effective, believing prayer that brings glory to You in the eyes of the nations of the earth and in the eyes of our own families. For Your name's sake, Jesus, we ask you for this and thank You for hearing and answering...Amen and amen!

Teach Me to Pray - Week #32: Our Boldness in Prayer

"This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us - whatever we ask - we know that we have what we asked of him." I John 5:14,15

The apostle John is giving us the basis for confidence in prayer when he says, by the Holy Spirit, that whatever we ask God in accordance to His will is heard by God; and if we know that He hears us, then we have the assurance that we have what we have asked for.

There are two things I want to point out here:

1. It's possible to know the will of God but we need to make the effort to find that out. Without this firm in our hearts, we'll never be able to pray with confidence and faith.
2. There are general promises in the Word of God concerning His people that we must take hold of by faith and apply to the circumstances of our lives. Comprehension of God's will for each of our lives is spiritually discerned, not simply a matter of logic. "Herein is the wisdom of the saints, to know this special will of God for each of us according to the measure of grace given us...It is to communicate this wisdom that the Holy Spirit dwells in us." In other words, we need both the Word and the Spirit to know the will of the Father for our particular situation.

For example, if you're praying for a family member who needs an encounter with God, either for salvation or for the fullness of His life to be actively at work in him/her, you can have a measure of confidence that this is the will of the Father because we know from His Word that He wants all to enter into their destiny in Him.

However, greater confidence comes through waiting before the Lord in prayer and humility to hear His heartbeat for this particular person and entering into His zeal and burden and passion for that one. We also grow in confidence through wrestling with God over the issue and genuinely seeking Him out and asking the hard questions while remaining in a posture of worship, which is a posture of submission. The psalmist and Job didn't hesitate to ask 'why?' and to argue their cases in their attempt to understand circumstances that made no sense. Jesus Himself cried 'why?' as He faced indescribable darkness and confusion on the cross.

All of this slowly builds confidence in God as we genuinely grow to understand His purposes and ways; we are learning to have a real relationship with Him rather than a religious relationship in which we say the right words but our spirit is closed down in the midst of the pain of the circumstances. If we will ask Him, He'll come and gently help us open our spirit to Him to help us trust once again and to pray with confidence.

Murray says, "Believe that you canknow if your prayer is according to God's will. Live day by day with the anointing of the Spirit that teaches all things. Then you will understand how the Father's love longs to have His child know His will and to grant the petitions he has asked of Him. 'This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will, he hears us' (I John 5:14)"
"A great deal of the blessing that God wills for His people never comes to them...Prayer is the power that brings to pass that which otherwise would not take place." As we abide in Him and He in us, we can ask whatever we wish and it will be given!

I encourage you this week to set your heart to ask for something impossible (that's what God specializes in). Ask with confidence, having God's promises in His Word and the Spirit's personal "yes!" backing it up. Wrestle with God for understanding of His ways and purposes while worshipping Him in the midst of unanswered questions. Our boldness in prayer isn't based on a feeling or a style of prayer but on our ongoing union with Jesus and the knowledge of His will.

Lord Jesus, teach us to pray!

Teach Me to Pray - Week #31: Christ the Sacrifice

"'Abba, Father,' he said, 'everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.'" Mark 14:36

In the previous chapter we saw Jesus as Intercessor; here we see Him as Sacrifice in the Garden of Gethsemane as He anticipates His death. In a matter of a few hours, His quiet words, "Father, the hour has come..." has changed into His agonizing cry, "Abba, Father!...Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will..."

Murray says, "Because of the entire surrender of His will in Gethsemane, the High Priest on the throne had the power to ask what He would. He has the right to let His people share in that power also and ask what they will."

Jesus' authority in intercession comes from His willingness to give up His own will, and it is in His not obtaining what He asks for ("take this cup from me") that we have the right to ask "whatever you wish" in prayer.

"To understand the prayer, let us note the infinite difference between what our Lord prayed a little while ago as a royal High Priest and what He begs here in His weakness. There He prayed for the glorifying of the Father and the glorifying of Himself and His people as the fulfillment of distinct promises that had been given Him. What He asked He knew to be according to the word and the will of the Father...Here He prays for something in regard to which the Father's will is not yet clear to Him. As far as He knows, it is the Father's will that he should drink the cup...(but) When the unutterable agony of soul burst upon Him as the power of darkness came over Him and he began to taste the first drops of death as the wrath of God against sin, His human nature shuddered in the presence of the awful reality of being made a curse."

Jesus' plea to be spared this "cup" was made in the context of a phrase repeated 3 times: "Yet not what I will." He was asking for something that He didn't have certainty about and so He made the request in the context of a will surrendered to the Father's will. Murray points out several mysteries related to Gethsemane:
1. The Father offers His beloved Son the cup of wrath.
2. The Son, always obedient, shrinks back and begs to not have to drink it.
3. The Father doesn't grant His Son's request but rather gives the cup to Him.
4. The Son yields to the Father's will.

"In Gethsemane I see that my Lord can give me unlimited assurance of an answer to my prayers. He won the privilege for me by His consent to have His petition unanswered. This is in harmony with the whole scheme of redemption. Our Lord always wins for us the opposite of what he suffered...Here in Gethsemane the word 'if you abide in me' acquires new force and depth. Christ is our Head, who stands in our place and bears what we must have borne forever."

I find this an intriguing and wonderful truth related to our prayer life in Jesus - we sinners deserve to have God turn a deaf ear to our prayers, but because Jesus suffered under the burden of this unanswered prayer and went to death as a result, His merit has won for me the answer to every prayer if I abide in Him!

Does this mean that I can expect answers to prayers that are selfish and outside of the Father's will? No, because the very meaning of abiding in Him suggests that "my will dies in Him, in Him to be made alive again. He breathes into it a renewed and quickened will, a holy insight into God's perfect will, a holy joy in yielding itself to be an instrument of that will..."

"The more deeply I enter into the prayer 'Not what I will' of Gethsemane, and abide in Him who spoke it, the fuller is my spiritual access into the power of His 'But what you will'...Being of one mind and spirit with Him in His giving up everything to God's will, living as He did in obedience and surrender to the Father - this is abiding in Him. This is the secret of power in prayer."

"Lamb of God, I would follow You to Gethsemane...With You, through You, in You, I yield my will in absolute and entire surrender to the will of the Father. I claim in faith the power of Your victory, conscious of my own weakness and the secret power with which my self-will would assert itself...In Your death I would daily live. In Your life I would daily die...With my whole soul I say with you, 'Father...not what I will, but what you will'...Lord Jesus, teach me to pray. Amen."

Teach Me to Pray - Week #30: Christ the High Priest

"Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am." John 17:24

This chapter is about Jesus' high-priestly prayer in John 17, and one of the opening paragraphs summarizes the chapter well:

"To let His disciples have the joy of knowing what His intercession for them in heaven as their High Priest will be, He gives this precious legacy of His prayer to the Father. He does this (also) because they as priests are to share in His work of intercession that they and we might know how to perform this holy work. In the teaching of our Lord on this last night, we have learned to understand that these astonishing prayer-promises have not been given on our own behalf but in the interest of the Lord and His kingdom. From the Lord alone can we learn what the prayer in His name is to be and what it is to obtain. We have seen that to pray in His name is to pray in perfect unity with Him. The high-priestly prayer will teach all that prayer in the name of Jesus may ask and expect to receive."

Murray reminds us of what a treasure we have in this written account of Jesus' prayer life! If this had not been recorded, we wouldn't have such a clear insight into what Jesus Himself is praying continually at the right hand of His Father nor would we know how we are to pray in our own priestly calling to intercede. Only in Jesus and from Him can we learn what true prayer is. In past chapters the author has pointed out clearly that true prayer is to pray in His name and to pray in His name is to be aligned with His heart and mind. In this prayer we have a peek into what's on His heart and mind. Praise the Lord for such a gift!

Jesus' prayer is divided into three major themes:
1. His prayer that the Father would glorify Him so that He could give glory to the Father. This teaches us that in prayer we want Jesus to be glorified (which means that His prayers are answered by the Father) so that the Father will receive glory. This is the ultimate goal of prayer - the glory of God the Father and Son. This implies oneness with God in prayer..."Draw near and appear before the Father in Christ. Plead His finished work. Say that you are one with it, you trust in it, and you live by it. Say that you too have given yourself to finish the work the Father has given you to do and to live alone for His glory. Then confidently ask that the Son may be glorified in you."

2. His prayer for the small circle of people in His life. This teaches us that our intercession must include regular persevering prayer for those God has placed us among: family, friends, ministry and work assignment, etc. Jesus tells us what to pray for them: that they will be kept from the evil one and that they will be sanctified through His Word.

3. His prayer for a wider circle: "...those who will believe in me through their message." This teaches us to pray for the Church universal and its many expressions. We are to pray for unity of the Spirit and love in the Church at large as a witness to the world of the reality of Jesus being God's chosen Messiah sent from heaven.

Jesus' high-priestly prayer ends with the expression of His desire (vs. 24). Because of His oneness in heart and mind with His Father, He could ask whatever He wanted and know that He would receive it. So with us: "He that loses his will will find it; he that gives up his will entirely will find it again renewed and strengthened with a divine strength. 'Father, I want...': this is the keynote of the everlasting, ever-active, all-prevailing intercession of our Lord in heaven. It is only in union with Him that our prayer prevails; in union with Him it avails much."

If you find it helpful for your growth in prayer, I encourage you to pray the following prayer which is part of Murray's prayer at the end of this chapter:

"Blessed High Priest...give your grace that this may increasingly be my unceasing life-work - to pray without ceasing, to bring the blessing of heaven down on all around me here on earth. Lord, I come to accept this as my calling...Take possession of my heart and fill it with one desire - the glory of God in the ingathering, sanctification, and union of those whom the Father has given you...Take me wholly and fit me as a priest to stand always before God and to bless in His name."

Thank You, Lord Jesus, for unveiling Your heart in this prayer...we love You!

Teach Me to Pray - Week #29: Christ the Intercessor

"I am not saying that I will ask the Father on your behalf." John 16:26

"He always lives to intercede." Hebrews 7:25

In this chapter Andrew Murray distinguishes between prayer that sees Jesus as Intercessor on my behalf and prayer that understands that I pray with direct access to the Father because of Christ in me and my oneness with Him.

"See the difference between having Christ as Advocate or Intercessor who stands outside of us and having Him within us - our abiding in Him and He in us through the Holy Spirit - perfecting our union with Him so that we can go directly to the Father in His name." Having direct access to the Father in prayer doesn't negate the mediatorship of the Lord Jesus, of course, "but it is no longer looked at as something external, existing outside of us, but as a real, living spiritual existence within us, so that the Christ for us, the Mediator, has really become Christ in us." (quote from Dr. I.T. Beck)

And because Jesus lives forever to intercede, He dwells within us as the Intercessor. This means that, just as in all other areas of living, our power to pray and intercede is Christ in us! "Because He prays, we also pray."

In the beginning of this chapter, Murray points out that the work of Jesus on earth as Priest/Intercessor was just the beginning of a life of never-ending intercession at the right hand of the Father. "'Christ Jesus, who died -- more than that, who...is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us' (Rom. 8:34) That intercession is an intense reality, a work that is absolutely necessary and without which the continued application of redemption cannot take place."

Jesus' present mediation on the throne is as important as on the cross. "Nothing takes place without His intercession. It engages all His time and powers. It is His unceasing occupation at the right hand of the Father...He alone has the power of prayer...Christ is the guarantee for our prayer life."

Murray goes on to challenge the reader that we who are in Christ not only partake of the benefits of His intercessory work but we participate in the work itself. He is the head and we are His body; the body follows the Head.

If our power to pray and our effectiveness in prayer is bound up in our union with the Great Intercessor, the obvious need for us is to continually grow in oneness with Him, our hearts and minds being increasingly aligned with how He thinks and feels and desires. I believe that the way this happens is through simple openness of heart to obey whatever He tells us to do and maintaining a "yes" to Him as He directs our paths.

A simple response to this chapter would be to pause and allow this truth to settle into your spirit - Christ in you is the Great Intercessor; because He prays, you can pray directly to the Father in His name.

Meditate on Jesus in you as Intercessor; be aware that your praying isn't separate from His prayers as if there were two separate prayers ascending to God (Jesus' prayers and your prayers). He is praying in you and will pray through you to the Father in increasing measure as you grow in daily agreement with Him and obedience to Him.

Holy Spirit, open my understanding of this wonder...I ask you to make real to me the truth that the Christ Who is the eternal Intercessor really dwells within me, always making intercession for and through me to the Father. Convince me, Lord, of the power and need of growing oneness with You to increase in prayer and thereby affect change in my little "world" for Your glory. Your life in me is prayer; teach me how to unite with You in Your prayer life, and help me not see myself separated from You as I pray but one with You in prayer. Thank You for hearing and answering, dear Lord!

Teach Me to Pray - Week #28: The Holy Spirit and Prayer

"In that day you will no longer ask me anything. I tell you the truth, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive and your joy will be complete. In that day you will ask in my name. I am not saying that I will ask the Father on your behalf. No, the Father himself loves you." John 16:23-24, 26-27

"In that day" refers to the day of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the glorified Jesus came to be the life of His disciples; one of the marks of this coming of the Spirit was to be a power in prayer never before experienced.

"In the intercession of Christ, the continued efficacy and application of His redemption is maintained. Through the Holy Spirit descending from Christ to us, we are drawn up into the great stream of His ever-ascending prayers. The Spirit prays for us without words. In the depths of the heart where even thoughts are at times formless, the Spirit takes us up into the wonderful flow of the life of the triune God. Through the Spirit, Christ's prayers become ours, and ours are made His; we ask what we will and it is given to us."

Murray goes on to say that the logical conclusion of this truth is that we need to ask for the baptism of the Holy Spirit in the name of Jesus and that this is more than what we see of Him in the Old Testament and in the conversion and regeneration of the disciples before Pentecost; and this is more than a measure of His influence and working...."This is the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the glorified Jesus in His exaltation power, coming on us as the Spirit of the indwelling Jesus, revealing the Son and the Father within (John 14:16-23). When this Spirit is the Spirit not only of our hours of prayer but also of our whole life and walk; and when this Spirit glorifies Jesus in us by revealing the completeness of His work, making us wholly one with Him and like Him; then we can pray in His name, because we are indeed one with Him."

"HOW WE NEED TO UNDERSTAND AND BELIEVE THAT TO BE FILLED WITH THIS SPIRIT OF THE GLORIFIED ONE IS THE ONE NEED OF GOD'S BELIEVING PEOPLE! THEN WE WILL UNDERSTAND "AND PRAY IN THE SPIRIT ON ALL OCCASIONS WITH ALL KINDS OF PRAYERS AND REQUESTS" (Ephesians 6:18), and "PRAY IN THE HOLY SPIRIT" (Jude 1:20)."

An effective life of prayer in God is impossible with the Holy Spirit dynamically at work in and through us. The Apostle Paul says in Romans 8 that we are weak in knowing how to pray but the Holy Spirit comes to our aid and makes intercession for us.

Exalted Jesus, send forth Your Spirit; baptize and fill us, Your people, with Your Spirit so that we may become a people of effective prayer. We confess that we need You and cannot hope to learn to pray without You. Thank You for hearing and answering our cry, in Jesus' name. Amen.

Teach Me to Pray - Week #27: The All-Prevailing Plea

"And I will do whatever you ask in my name...You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it...Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name...I tell you the truth, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive...In that day you will ask in my name." John 14:13,14; 15:16; 16:23, 24, 26

This is the first time that we hear Jesus use the expression "ask in my name." In the context of asking in His name, He repeatedly uses the words "anything" and "whatever". This teaches us that "His name is our only but all-sufficient plea. The power of prayer and the answer depend on the right use of the name."

What's the significance of a person's name? Murray says, "When I mention or hear a name, it calls up before me the whole man - what I know of him and the impression he has made on me...each name of God embodies and represents some part of the glory of the unseen One." The name of Jesus embodies all that God is.

To do something in someone's name is to have the power and authority of that person as his representative. This presumes a common interest, because no one would allow another person to use his name if that person did not have the same interest as the bearer of the name. He only entrusts his name to someone who will rightly represent him.

"He who gives his name to another stands aside to let that person act for him. He who takes the name of another gives up his own (name) as of no value. When I go in the name of another, I deny myself...." So to pray in the name of Jesus is to give up my own agenda and to pray according to His interests.

This issue of the use of the name of a person can be seen in light of a legal union. A businessman may give his manager power of attorney to be able to access money in his name. This access is for the sake of the interests of the business, not for the manager's personal interests. "The use of a name always assumes the surrender of our interests to the one whom we represent."

Another context for the use of a name is that of a life union which, unlike a temporary legal union, is permanent. "A child has his father's name because he has his life blood. Often the child of a good father is honored or helped by others for the sake of the name he bears. But this would not last long if it were found out that it was only a name and that the father's character was in question. The name and the character or spirit must be in harmony...So it is with Jesus and the believer: We are one. We have one life, one Spirit with Him, and for this reason we may come in His name. Our power in using that name, whether with God or men or demons, depends on the measure of our spiritual life union."

The third relationship in which we see the use of another's name is in the union of love. In marriage, the bride gives up her name to be called by the bridegroom's name and therein has full right to use his name. No matter what her own status in society was before marrying him, once she bears his name, she has all the rights that he has. "The heavenly Bridegroom could do nothing less. Having loved us and made us one with Himself, He could only give those who bear His name the right to come before the Father for all they need."

"The bearing of the name of another supposes my having given up my own name and my own independent life; but it shows just as surely my possession of all there is behind the name I have taken."

When Jesus promises that He "will do whatever you ask in my name", He means it literally. We don't need to fear that this is license to pray selfishly, because the very phrase "in my name" is the safeguard against that. To pray in His name is to have given up my own name and agenda for the sake of His name and agenda; in that kind of relationship, I can pray with confidence that He will do whatever I ask Him!

"...So let us learn to pray in the name of Jesus...Let each disciple of Jesus avail himself of the rights of his royal priesthood and use the power placed at his disposal for his family and his work. Let Christians wake up and hear the message: your prayer can obtain what otherwise would be withheld, and it can accomplish what otherwise would remain undone. Use the name of Jesus to open the treasures of heaven for this perishing world..."

"Teach me, O Lord, to hold fast the precious promise that whatever we ask for in your name, you will do and the Father will give. Though I do not yet fully understand, and still less have fully attained the wonderful union you mean when you say, 'in my name,' I would still cling to the promise until it fills my heart with the undoubting assurance: Anything I ask in the name of Jesus...Lord Jesus, teach me by your Holy Spirit to pray in your name. Amen."