THE example of our Lord in the matter of prayer is one which His
followers might well copy. Christ prayed much and He taught much about
prayer. His life and His works, as well as His teaching, are
illustrations of the nature and necessity of prayer. He lived and
laboured to answer prayer. But the necessity of importunity in prayer
was the emphasised point in His teaching about prayer. He taught not
only that men must pray, but that they must persevere in prayer.
He taught in command and precept the idea of energy and earnestness in
praying. He gives to our efforts gradation and climax. We are to ask,
but to the asking we must add seeking, and seeking must pass into the
full force of effort in knocking. The pleading soul must be aroused to
effort by God’s silence. Denial, instead of abating or abashing, must
arouse its latent energies and kindle anew its highest ardour.
In the Sermon on the Mount, in which He lays down the cardinal duties of
His religion, He not only gives prominence to prayer in general and
secret prayer in particular, but He sets apart a distinct and different
section to give weight to importunate prayer. To prevent any
discouragement in praying He lays as a basic principle the fact of God’s
great fatherly willingness—that God’s willingness to answer our prayers
exceeds our willingness to give good and necessary things to our
children, just as far as God’s ability, goodness and perfection exceed
our infirmities and evil. As a further assurance and stimulant to prayer
Christ gives the most positive and iterated assurance of answer to
prayers. He declares: “Ask and it shall be given you; seek and ye shall
find; knock and it shall be opened unto you.” And to make assurance
doubly sure, He adds: “For every one that asketh, receiveth; and he that
seeketh, findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.”
Why does He unfold to us the Father’s loving readiness to answer the
prayer of His children? Why does He asseverate so strongly that prayer
will be answered? Why does He repeat that positive asseveration six
times? Why does Christ on two distinct occasions go over the same strong
promises, iterations, and reiterations in regard to the certainty of
prayer being answered? Because He knew that there would be delay in many
an answer which would call for importunate pressing, and that if our
faith did not have the strongest assurance of God’s willingness to
answer, delay would break it down. And that our spiritual sloth would
come in, under the guise of submission, and say it is not God’s will to
give what we ask, and so cease praying and lose our case. After Christ
had put God’s willingness to answer prayer in a very clear and strong
light, He then urges to importunity, and that every unanswered prayer,
instead of abating our pressure should only increase intensity and
energy. If asking does not get, let asking pass into the settled
attitude and spirit of seeking. If seeking does not secure the answer,
let seeking pass on to the more energetic and clamorous plea of
knocking. We must persevere till we get it. No failure here if our faith
does not break down.
As our great example in prayer, our Lord puts love as a primary
condition—a love that has purified the heart from all the elements of
hate, revenge, and ill will. Love is the supreme condition of prayer, a
life inspired by love. The 13th chapter of 1st Corinthians is the law of
prayer as well as the law of love. The law of love is the law of prayer,
and to master this chapter from the epistle of St. Paul is to learn the
first and fullest condition of prayer.
Christ taught us also to approach the Father in His name. That is our
passport. It is in His name that we are to make our petitions known.
“Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on Me, the works that
I do shall he do also; and greater _works_ than these shall he do;
because I go unto the Father. And whatsoever ye shall ask in My name,
that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall
ask Me anything in My name, that will I do.”
How wide and comprehensive is that “whatsoever.” There is no limit to
the power of that name. “Whatsoever ye shall ask.” That is the Divine
declaration, and it opens up to every praying child a vista of infinite
resource and possibility.
And that is our heritage. All that Christ has may become ours if we obey
the conditions. The one secret is prayer. The place of revealing and of
equipment, of grace and of power, is the prayer-chamber, and as we meet
there with God we shall not only win our triumphs but we shall also grow
in the likeness of our Lord and become His living witnesses to men.
Without prayer the Christian life, robbed of its sweetness and its
beauty, becomes cold and formal and dead; but rooted in the secret place
where God meets and walks and talks with His own, it grows into such a
testimony of Divine power that all men will feel its influence and be
touched by the warmth of its love. Thus, resembling our Lord and Master,
we shall be used for the glory of God and the salvation of our fellow
men.
And that, surely, is the purpose of all real prayer and the end of all
true service.