I've been reading a challenging book... it's an old book written sometime after 1912. It's entitled "The Prayer Life - The Inner Chamber and the deepest secret of Pentecost." It was written in response to a conference of ministers at Stellenbosch, South Africa, April 11-14, 1912.
The topic of the conference was "the low state of spiritual life which marked the Church generally." I have been amazed, as in the past with the writings of guys like A.W. Tozer and Oswald Chambers, that the "problems" of the past are strikingly similiar to problems of today!
Prayerlessness was the main topic of discussion at this conference 95 years ago. Here's a quote:
"They(conference attendees) did not dare to make any promise to the Lord to live and pray as He would have them; they felt it impossible. Such confessions gradually led to the great truth, that the only power for a new prayer life is to be found in an entirely new relation to our blessed Savior. It is as we see in Him the Lord who saves us from sin-- thesin of prayerlessness--and our faith yields itself to a life of closer intercourse with Him, that a life in His love and fellowship will make prayer to Him the natural expression of our soul's life."
God could make it really hard on us... to come to him and all. But, no spiritual gymnastics are required. Just open your mouth, your ears and your heart. Be genuine...be real. Submit to God what you think... then open the Word and say back to him what He thinks. Then just listen. God will speak... He's been waiting for us to listen.
Boy, do I want prayer to become a "natural expression of my soul's life!" I'll bet you do to.
Van
1 comment:
It seems we struggle with the same things now as the Christians did centuries ago. To be open and available to God all the time. We don't have "to clean up" to meet with God. That's good stuff.
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