The Life that can Pray
"_If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you_, ask whatsoever ye
will, and it shall be done unto you."--JOHN xv. 7.
"The supplication of _a righteous man_ availeth much in its
working."--JAMES v. 16.
"Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, we have boldness toward God;
and whatsoever we ask, we receive of Him, _because_ we keep His
commandments, and do the things that are pleasing in His sight."--1
JOHN iii. 21, 22.
Here on earth the influence of one who asks a favour for others depends
entirely on his character, and the relationship he bears to him with
whom he is interceding. It is what he is that gives weight to what he
asks. It is no otherwise with God. Our power in prayer depends upon our
life. Where our life is right we shall know how to pray so as to please
God, and prayer will secure the answer. The texts quoted above all point
in this direction. "_If ye abide in Me_," our Lord says, ye shall ask,
and it shall be done unto you. It is the prayer of _a righteous man_,
according to James, that availeth much. We receive whatsoever we ask,
John says, _because_ we obey and please God. All lack of power to pray
aright and perseveringly, all lack of power in prayer with God, points
to some lack in the Christian life. It is as we learn to live the life
that pleases God, that God will give what we ask. Let us learn from our
Lord Jesus, in the parable of the vine, what the healthy, vigorous life
is that may ask and receive what it will. Hear His voice, "If ye abide
in Me, and My words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it
shall be done unto you." And again at the close of the parable: "Ye did
not choose Me, but I chose you, and appointed you, that you should go
and bear fruit, and that your fruit should abide: that _whatsoever ye
shall ask_ the Father in My name, _He may give it you_."
And what is now, according to the parable, the life that one must lead
to bear fruit, and then ask and receive what we will? What is it we are
to be or do, that will enable us to pray as we should, and to receive
what we ask? The answer is in one word: it is the branch-life that gives
power for prayer. We are branches of Christ, the Living Vine. We must
simply live like branches, and abide in Christ, then we shall ask what
we will, and it shall be done unto us.
We all know what a branch is, and what its essential characteristic. It
is simply a growth of the vine, produced by it and appointed to bear
fruit. It has only one reason of existence; it is there at the bidding
of the vine, that through it the vine may bear and ripen its precious
fruit. Just as the vine only and solely and wholly lives to produce the
sap that makes the grape, so the branch has no other aim and object but
this alone, to receive that sap and bear the grape. Its only work is to
serve the vine, that through it the vine may do its work.
And the believer, the branch of Christ the Heavenly Vine, is it to be
understood that he is as literally, as exclusively, to live only that
Christ may bear fruit through him? Is it meant that a true Christian as
a branch is to be just as absorbed in and devoted to the work of bearing
fruit to the glory of God as Christ the Vine was on earth, and is now in
heaven? This, and nothing less, is indeed what is meant. It is to such
that the unlimited prayer promises of the parable are given. It is the
branch-life, existing solely for the Vine, that will have the power to
pray aright. With our life abiding in Him, and His words abiding, kept
and obeyed, in our heart and life, transmuted into our very being, there
will be the grace to pray aright, and the faith to receive the
whatsoever we will.
Do let us connect the two things, and take them both in their simple,
literal truth, and their infinite, divine grandeur. The promises of our
Lord's farewell discourse, with their wonderful six-fold repetition of
the unlimited, _anything, whatsoever_ (John xiv. 13, 14; xv. 7, 16; xvi.
23, 24), appear to us altogether too large to be taken literally, and
they are qualified down to meet our human ideas of what appears seemly.
It is because we separate them from that life of absolute and unlimited
devotion to Christ's service to which they were given. God's covenant
is ever: Give all and take all. He that is willing to be wholly branch,
and nothing but branch, who is ready to place himself absolutely at the
disposal of Jesus the Vine of God, to bear His fruit through him, and to
live every moment only for Him, will receive a Divine liberty to claim
Christ's _whatsoever_ in all its fulness, and a Divine wisdom and
humility to use it aright. He will live and pray, and claim the Father's
promises, even as Christ did, only for God's glory in the salvation of
men. He will use his boldness in prayer only with a view to power in
intercession, and getting men blessed. The unlimited devotion of the
branch-life to fruitbearing, and the unlimited access to the treasures
of the Vine life, are inseparable. It is the life abiding wholly in
Christ that can pray the effectual prayer in the name of Christ.
Just think for a moment of the men of prayer in Scripture, and see in
them what the life was that could pray in such power. We spoke of
Abraham as intercessor. What gave Him such boldness? He knew that God
had chosen and called him away from his home and people to walk before
Him, that all nations might be blessed in him. He knew that he had
obeyed, and forsaken all for God. Implicit obedience, to the very
sacrifice of his son, was the law of his life. He did what God asked: he
dared trust God to do what he asked. We spoke of Moses as intercessor.
He too had forsaken all for God, "counting the reproach of Christ
greater riches than all the treasures of Egypt." He lived at God's
disposal: "as a servant he was faithful in all His house." How often it
is written of him, "According to all that the Lord commanded Moses, so
did he." No wonder that he was very bold: his heart was right with God:
he knew God would hear him. No less true is this of Elijah, the man who
stood up to plead for the Lord God of Israel. The man who is ready to
risk all for God can count upon God to do all for him.
It is as men live that they pray. It is the life that prays. It is the
life that, with whole-hearted devotion, gives up all for God and to God,
that can claim all from God. Our God longs exceedingly to prove Himself
the Faithful God and Mighty Helper of His people. He only waits for
hearts wholly turned from the world to Himself, and open to receive His
gifts. The man who loses all will find all; he dare ask and take it.
The branch that only and truly lives abiding in Christ, the Heavenly
Vine, entirely given up, like Christ, to bear fruit in the salvation of
men, and has His words taken up into and abiding in its life, may and
dare ask what it will--it shall be done. And where we have not yet
attained to that full devotion to which our Lord had trained His
disciples, and cannot equal them in their power of prayer, we may,
nevertheless, take courage in remembering that, even in the lower stages
of the Christian life, every new onward step in the striving after the
perfect branch-life, and every surrender to live for others in
intercession, will be met from above by a corresponding liberty to draw
nigh with greater boldness, and expect larger answers. The more we pray,
and the more conscious we become of our unfitness to pray in power, the
more we shall be urged and helped to press on towards the secret of
power in prayer--a life abiding in Christ entirely at His disposal.
And if any are asking, with somewhat of a despair of attainment, what
the reason may be of the failure in this blessed branch-life, so simple
and yet so mighty, and how they can come to it, let me point them to
one of the most precious lessons of the parable of the Vine. It is one
that is all too little noticed. Jesus spake, "I am the true Vine, _and
my Father is the Husbandman_." We have not only Himself, the glorified
Son of God, in His divine fulness, out of whose fulness of life and
grace we can draw,--this is very wonderful,--but there is something more
blessed still. We have the Father, as the Husbandman, watching over our
abiding in the Vine, over our growth and fruitbearing. It is not left to
our faith or our faithfulness to maintain our union with Christ: the
God, who is the Father of Christ, and who united us with Him,--God
Himself will see to it that the branch is what it should be, will enable
us to bring forth just the fruit we were appointed to bear. Hear what
Christ said of this, "Every branch that beareth fruit, He cleanseth it,
that it may bear more fruit." More fruit is what the Father seeks; more
fruit is what the Father will Himself provide. It is for this that He,
as the Vinedresser, cleanses the branches.
Just think a moment what this means. It is said that of all fruitbearing
plants on earth there is none that produces fruit so full of spirit,
from which spirit can be so abundantly distilled, as the vine. And of
all fruitbearing plants there is none that is so ready to run into wild
wood, and for which pruning and cleansing are so indispensable. The one
great work that a vinedresser has to do for the branch every year is to
prune it. Other plants can for a time dispense with it, and yet bear
fruit: the vine _must_ have it. And so the one thing the branch that
desires to abide in Christ and bring forth much fruit, and to be able to
ask whatsoever it will, must do, is to trust in and yield itself to this
Divine cleansing. What is it that the vinedresser cuts away with his
pruning-knife? Nothing but the wood that the branch has produced--true,
honest wood, with the true vine nature in it. This must be cut away. And
why? Because it draws away the strength and life of the vine, and
hinders the flow of the juice to the grape. The more it is cut down, the
less wood there is in the branch, the more all the sap can go to the
grape. The wood of the branch must decrease, that the fruit for the vine
may increase; in obedience to the law of all nature, that death is the
way to life, that gain comes through sacrifice, the rich and luxuriant
growth of wood must be cut off and cast away, that the life more
abundant may be seen in the cluster.
Even so, child of God, branch of the Heavenly Vine, there is in thee
that which appears perfectly innocent and legitimate, and which yet so
draws out thy interest and thy strength, that it must be pruned and
cleansed away. We saw what power in prayer men like Abraham and Moses
and Elijah had, and we know what fruit they bore. But we also know what
it cost them; how God had to separate them from their surroundings, and
ever again to draw them from any trust in themselves, to seek their life
in Him alone. It is only as our own will, and strength and effort and
pleasure, even where these appear perfectly natural and sinless, are cut
down, so that the whole energies of our being are free and open to
receive the sap of the Heavenly Vine, the Holy Spirit, that we shall
bear much fruit. It is in the surrender of what nature holds fast, it is
in the full and willing submission to God's holy pruning-knife, that we
shall come to what Christ chose and appointed us for--to bear fruit,
that whatsoever we ask the Father in Christ's name, He may give to us.
What the pruning-knife is, Christ tells us in the next verse. "Ye are
_clean through the word_ which I have spoken to you." As He says later,
"Sanctify them through Thy truth; Thy word is truth." "The word of God
is sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing of
soul and spirit." What heart-searching words Christ had spoken to His
disciples on love and humility, on being the least, and, like Himself,
the servant of all, on denying self, and taking the cross, and losing
the life. Through His word the Father had cleansed them, cut away all
confidence in themselves or the world, and prepared them for the
inflowing and filling of the Spirit of the Heavenly Vine. It is not we
who can cleanse ourselves: God is the Vinedresser: we may confidently
intrust ourselves to His care.
Beloved brethren,--ministers, missionaries, teachers, workers, believers
old and young,--are you mourning your lack of prayer, and, as a
consequence, your lack of power in prayer? Oh! come and listen to your
beloved Lord as He tells you, "only be a branch, united to, identified
with, the Heavenly Vine, and your prayers will be effectual and much
availing." Are you mourning that just this is your trouble--you do not,
cannot, live this branch-life, abiding in Him? Oh! come and listen
again. "_More fruit_" is not only your desire, but the Father's too. He
is the Husbandman who cleanseth the fruitful branch, that it may bear
more fruit. Cast yourself upon God, to do in you what is impossible to
man. Count upon a Divine cleansing, to cut down and take away all that
self-confidence and self-effort, that has been the cause of your
failure. The God who gave you His beloved Son to be your Vine, who made
you His branch, will He not do His work of cleansing to make you
fruitful in every good work, in the work of prayer and intercession too?
Here is the life that can pray. A branch entirely given up to the Vine
and its aims, with all responsibility for its cleansing cast on the
Vinedresser; a branch abiding in Christ, trusting and yielding to God
for His cleansing, can bear much fruit. In the power of such a life we
shall love prayer, we shall know how to pray, we shall pray, and receive
whatsoever we ask.
A PLEA FOR MORE PRAYER