Your ShelfYour Projects

Our Great Need of Prayer

9%

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jun 22, 1916

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 93, No. 31.

Read the full edition

Our Great Need of Prayer

By A. C. ANDERSON

A. C. ANDERSON
PRAYER is said to be “the medium by which we get in touch with God, and through which he produces music in our souls. But to have this music, we must know how to approach him, how to address him, and above all, how to appropriate him. In this sense prayer becomes an art, and this art is the secret of holy living and serving.”
Jesus “spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint” (Luke 18:1); that is, they should not become discouraged nor cease to pray. This parable has reference to his elect people living on the earth just before he comes, for in the eighth verse the question is asked, “When the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?” He also speaks of the unjust judge, “which feared not God, neither regarded man,” yet he heard and answered the widow because of her importunity. Jesus then said, “Hear,” or attend, and receive the instruction which this cause affords. “Shall not God avenge his own elect?”
If importunity had such power with an unjust judge, who cared not for the poor widow’s cause, how much more shall God, the just Judge, who tenderly cares for his people, vindicate and deliver them, though for a long time he delays to answer? The time may seem long to us, but it is short to him. It is not delayed a moment beyond the limits of his grace. “The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is long-suffering to usward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”
Our spiritual relation with Christ can be established only by the exercise of personal faith and prayer. There is a wide difference between a pretended union and a real connection with Christ by living faith. A profession of the truth may place men in the church, but it does not prove that they have a vital connection with Christ. And even after a real union with Christ has been made, it can be preserved only by earnest prayer and untiring effort. Satan will not cease to tempt us. We must resist, we must deny, we must keep under the body; in short, we must conquer self. Through the grace of Christ, by courage, by faith, by watchfulness, we may gain the victory.
Prayer will connect us with God as nothing else will. It will give us wisdom, grace, and knowledge. It will guard us from the snares and pitfalls of Satan, and keep us pure in thought and holy in heart.
If there ever was a time when God’s people needed to pray, it is now. We need to humble ourselves before God, and make an earnest effort to empty the soul temple of all rubbish. Envy and jealousy must forever be banished from the heart. “Cleanse your hearts, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double-minded. Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.”
We are told: “Conscience is the voice of God, heard amid the conflict of human passions. When it is resisted, the Spirit of God is grieved.” “Enter into your closet, and in silence commune with him; listen to the voice of truth and conscience. Nothing will give clearer views of self than secret prayer. Now is the time to make a covenant with God and yield yourselves and all your powers to his service. Plain simple duties will be revealed to us. He who seeth in secret and knoweth all things, will enlighten the darkened mind of its duty.”
“Take time to be holy, The world rushes on; Spend much time in secret With Jesus alone; By looking to Jesus, Like him thou shalt be; Thy friends in thy conduct His likeness shall see.”
Boulder, Colo.