The Week of Prayer-What Should It Mean to Us? by William T. Knox

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Dec 7, 1911

The Week of Prayer—What Should It Mean to Us?

By William T. Knox

We have reached another season of prayer, an occasion that may mean very much to the people of God, if they will but avail themselves of its privileges. We stand with our backs toward the closing year, with its nearly completed record of so many and so great blessings from God; with its faulty and deficient service from us to him. How gracious the Lord has been to us, individually and as a people! How tenderly he has cared for us in the midst of the great dangers and fearful calamities of these last days! How abundantly he has blessed us in all our affairs, and in our efforts to give this message of mercy to the nations of the earth!

All this calls for sincere devotion and thanksgiving on our part, a surrender to the Lord that will be full and complete. The year before us is one of many and great opportunities,—opportunities that we can not ignore. Never in the history of the denomination have we had so many and great responsibilities resting upon us as are those for the year 1912. While the work planned by the General Conference Committee, or rather, that which has been thrust upon us, for 1912, is, in its requirements, far in excess of the offerings of the denomination, yet it is equally true that the work the Lord would have us do, is greatly in excess of that planned by us.

The message is to triumph, and that gloriously, but there is only one agency by which this can be accomplished,—the Holy Spirit. The same Spirit that gave prevailing power to the disciples, must have full possession of this people. This great blessing is needed, and must be possessed, not only by our missionaries out on the firing-line and by our ministers in the home land, but all, from the least to the greatest, must have this heavenly baptism. This week of prayer should therefore be an occasion marked by most earnest seeking upon the part of all for this divine gift, that God may thereby qualify us for our work in hand.

The enlarged plans for 1912 call for an expenditure by the General Conference of $475,000, with many urgent calls unsupplied. Some of these unanswered calls must receive attention before the year passes. In view of this, and the deficit in our treasury for 1911, the General Conference Committee appeals to our people everywhere for great liberality in their annual offerings in connection with the week of prayer, in order that the necessities of the day may be met. As the work of God expands, so must our gifts increase. Our standards of yesterday will not suffice for to-day.

W. T. KNOX.