HOLY LIVING | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 21, 1876

HOLY LIVING.

No one who sets himself seriously to live a holy life can proceed far without perceiving the immense importance of prayer. “If you can pray aright,” says one, “you have mastered the great secret of the spiritual life.” The word of God is full of thoughts on prayer, and of examples of its success; the unanimous voice of the entire Christian discipleship, in all past times, and in all sections of the church, declare its importance; and if further proofs of its value and necessity were needed, they are found in the fact, that the enemy of souls, in his endeavor to destroy spiritual life, finds it his most gainful policy to rob its possessors of the heritage of blessing they have in the privilege of prayer. We shall not be in danger of exaggerating the importance of devotion if we consider the oneness of the spiritual life. There can be no conflict between the devotional and practical in those whose endeavor it is to live Bible holiness; for the one is the spring and life of the other; and if we make it an axiom that no man can live well but he who prays well, it is just as true that no man can pray well but he who lives well—so inseparable are the prayer which lifts up “holy hands,” and the conduct which is filled with holy deeds.

“And thus it is that prayer is of such vital importance to the well-being of the soul. Study may be dispensed with by those who work with their hands for God; handiwork may be dispensed with by those who seek him in books and thought. But prayer is indispensable, alike for workers and students, alike for scholar and peasant, alike for the educated and the unlettered, for we all have to seek God’s face above; we all have souls to be sanctified and saved; we all have sins and passions to beat back and conquer; and these things are achieved pre-eminently by prayer, which is properly and representatively the action of religion. It is the action whereby we can, in all our frailty and defilement, associate ourselves with our divine Advocate on high, and realize the sublime bond which in him, the one Mediator between God and man, unites us, in our utter unworthiness to the strong and all-holy God.”

This witness is true. How can we live without prayer? It is no poetic exaggeration to say.

“Prayer is the Christian’s vital breath, The Christian’s native air.”

When we separate prayer into its several elements, we perceive at once its rightness and necessity. It is adoration: we bow before the Lord our Maker in acknowledgment of his God-head, and as his creatures to worship at his footstool. What a privilege is this! To realize what he is in power, in holiness, goodness, in magnificence of life; to know him, to call him Father, to meet the rays of his glory, to fall before him and cry,

“We praise thee, O God! We acknowledge thee to be the Lord; All the earth doth worship thee, The Father everlasting!”

It is confession of our sinfulness, of our dependence upon his mercy. And how needful to a right estimate of our sins, that we should behold them, as he sees them, in the light of his countenance. Prayer is petition. We are dependent: God, “Giver of all spiritual grace, the Author of everlasting life,” is our Father, and he says, “Ask and ye shall receive.” How many things have we every hour to beg for? It is thanksgiving for the manifold mercies we receive; and it is more—it is praise to the matchless love which is their origin. For the streams which flow down to us we are grateful, but the Fountain! “O my God, I will give thanks unto thee.” And it is intercession. How necessary that we, joined to many in close relationship and sympathy, and to the whole brotherhood of man, should offer fervent prayers and giving of thanks for all men.

We are impressed with the value of prayer when we regard it in relation to the supply of our personal, spiritual need. Have we begun the life of religion? Has God “saved us, and called us with a holy calling?” Has he imparted the inspiration which moves us heavenward? Then, to sustain this life, we need abundance of prayer. It is of the first importance that we should know God, not his attributes, his laws, merely, but himself; and there is no other way of securing intimacy with him but by secret communion with him. “He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.” A world of disturbing elements surrounds us, but we can have peace, and have it only by conscious union with God. Perils are on every hand, free to assail us with malicious eagerness and perseverance; dangers on either side of our path; rough storms which beat over us. We are only safe so long as we keep close to our Father, our Defender. Neglect of prayer means voluntary absence from him; love of it is the heart’s tight grasp of his hand.

We have service to render, not only the sacred offerings of every-day duty, but “labor for his name’s sake” and the good of humanity. How great the work! How insufficient our strength! We are strong for doing and suffering only so long as we live in close personal friendship with Him who is our life. Does not the testimony of all who seek holiness declare that real power and fruitfulness in Christian living rise and fall in exact proportion to faithfulness in secret prayer? If we would be holy, we must pray; if we covet usefulness we must pray; if we would do His whole will, who has saved us, prayer must be with us the first thing, prayer the second, prayer the third.

Nor should our thoughts on this subject be confined to personal considerations. We are members of that great confederation of hearts, the church of Christ, to which he has entrusted, not only the building up of itself in love, but the conversion of lost humanity to himself. It follows that on each living member of his church devolves a share of the responsibility of edifying the rest, and of bringing sinful men to Christ. Who that knows anything of the means of doing good, but must confess that prayer, of all forces, is one of the strongest? When a successful soul-saver was asked the secret of his power in winning men, he replied, “Knee work! Knee work! KNEE WORK!”

Every believer is a priest, anointed and consecrated, not only to offer spiritual sacrifices, acceptable through Christ, but to intercede for others. When the high priest of Israel, on the great day of atonement, went within the veil, the assembled worshipers who waited in the temple knew that he was before the mercy-seat praying for them. What a power would touch the unsaved, were it known that God’s people everywhere, feeling the full responsibility of their priestly position, were pleading for the souls of men. “I exhort, therefore, that first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men.” What would be the result were the entire membership of a church to be found daily upon its knees in secret, pleading for its pastors, its young people, and the unsaved around? That church would have a great revival, a revival that would guarantee its own permanence—its foundations being laid deep in earnest prayer.

Will the reader settle it in his heart that if he would be holy he must learn to pray? Not simply in special hours of need, when the pressure of a great grief is forcing from the soul petitions for help; not merely in public, when the spirit is carried forward by the sympathy of multitudes, but in the secret apartment of the heart, and under all circumstances, weaving the woof of life with the thread of prayer, joining it to all purposes, offering it in all duties, and through all changes of sorrow and joy, till in the very end of all, it becomes “his watchword at the gates of death.” “The most arduous act of the reason and will is to pray, to pray as God would have us: this is what, at times, makes me turn cold to my soul. Believe me, to pray with all your heart and strength, with the reason and the will, to believe vividly that God will listen to your voice through Christ, and verily do the thing he pleaseth thereupon: this is the last, the greatest achievement of the Christian’s warfare upon earth. Teach us to pray, O Lord!”—Rev. I. E. Page.