According
to this teaching of the Master, prayer consists of two parts, has two sides, a
human and a Divine. The human is the asking, the Divine is the giving. Or, to
look at both from the human side, there is the asking and the receiving-the two
halves that make up a whole. It is as if He would tell us that we are not to
rest without an answer, because it is the will of God, the rule in the Father's
family: every childlike believing petition is granted. If no answer comes, we
are not to sit down in the sloth that calls itself resignation, and suppose that
it is not God's will to give an answer. No; there must be something in the
prayer that is not as God would have it, childlike and believing; we must seek
for grace to pray so that the answer may come. It is far easier to the flesh to
submit without the answer than to yield itself to be searched and purified by
the Spirit, until it has learnt to pray the prayer of faith. - Andrew Murray
According
to Jesus, by far the most important thing about praying is to keep at it. Be
importunate, Jesus says -- not, one assumes, because you have to beat a path to
God's door before he'll open it, but because until you beat the path maybe
there's no way of getting to your door. - Frederick Buechner
It
is answered prayer which brings praying out of the realm of dry, dead things,
and makes praying a thing of life and power. It is the answer to prayer which
brings things to pass, changes the natural trend of things, and orders all
things according to the will of God. It is the answer to prayer which takes
praying out of the regions of fanaticism, and saves it from being Utopian, or
from being merely fanciful. It is the answer to prayer which makes praying a
power for God and for man, and makes praying real and divine. Unanswered prayers
are training schools for unbelief, an imposition and a nuisance, an impertinence
to God and to man. - E. M. Bounds
Jesus
never mentioned unanswered prayer, He had the boundless certainty that prayer is
always answered. Have we by the Spirit the unspeakable certainty that Jesus had
about prayer, or do we think of the times when God does not seem to have
answered prayer? "Every one that asketh receiveth." We say - "But..., but . . ."
God answers prayer in the best way, not sometimes, but every time, although the
immediate manifestation of the answer in the domain in which we want it may not
always follow. Do we expect God to answer prayer? The danger with us is that we
want to water down the things that Jesus says and make them mean something in
accordance with common sense; if it were only common sense, it was not worth
while for Him to say it. The things Jesus says about prayer are supernatural
revelations. - Oswald Chambers
According
to this teaching of the Master, prayer consists of two parts, has two sides, a
human and a Divine. The human is the asking, the Divine is the giving. Or, to
look at both from the human side, there is the asking and the receiving-the two
halves that make up a whole. It is as if He would tell us that we are not to
rest without an answer, because it is the will of God, the rule in the Father's
family: every childlike believing petition is granted. If no answer comes, we
are not to sit down in the sloth that calls itself resignation, and suppose that
it is not God's will to give an answer. No; there must be something in the
prayer that is not as God would have it, childlike and believing; we must seek
for grace to pray so that the answer may come. It is far easier to the flesh to
submit without the answer than to yield itself to be searched and purified by
the Spirit, until it has learnt to pray the prayer of faith. - Andrew Murray
According
to Jesus, by far the most important thing about praying is to keep at it. Be
importunate, Jesus says -- not, one assumes, because you have to beat a path to
God's door before he'll open it, but because until you beat the path maybe
there's no way of getting to your door. - Frederick Buechner
It
is answered prayer which brings praying out of the realm of dry, dead things,
and makes praying a thing of life and power. It is the answer to prayer which
brings things to pass, changes the natural trend of things, and orders all
things according to the will of God. It is the answer to prayer which takes
praying out of the regions of fanaticism, and saves it from being Utopian, or
from being merely fanciful. It is the answer to prayer which makes praying a
power for God and for man, and makes praying real and divine. Unanswered prayers
are training schools for unbelief, an imposition and a nuisance, an impertinence
to God and to man. - E. M. Bounds
Jesus
never mentioned unanswered prayer, He had the boundless certainty that prayer is
always answered. Have we by the Spirit the unspeakable certainty that Jesus had
about prayer, or do we think of the times when God does not seem to have
answered prayer? "Every one that asketh receiveth." We say - "But..., but . . ."
God answers prayer in the best way, not sometimes, but every time, although the
immediate manifestation of the answer in the domain in which we want it may not
always follow. Do we expect God to answer prayer? The danger with us is that we
want to water down the things that Jesus says and make them mean something in
accordance with common sense; if it were only common sense, it was not worth
while for Him to say it. The things Jesus says about prayer are supernatural
revelations. - Oswald Chambers