Hints on Prayer
"In Gibeon the Lord appeared what I shall give thee. " - 1 Kings 3: 5.
to Solomon in a dream by niahf and
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"Hitherto ye have asked nothing in My name: ask, and ye shall receive that your joy may be full."—John 16.2 4 It is well for us that W6 are com- manded to pray, or else in times of , heaviness we might give it up. If God command me, unfit as I may be, I will creep to t he footstool of grace; and since He says, "Pray without ceasing," though, my words fail me and my heart itself will wander, yet I will still stam- mer out the wishes of my hungering soul and say, " 0 God, at least teach me to pray and help me to prevail with thee."—C. H. Spurgeon. Satan the Hinderer may build a bar- rier about us, but he can never roof us in, so that we cannot look up. Since our God has opened the way to His throne of grace, and bidden us draw near and ask what He shall give us, let us prize the privilege and ask and receive that we may have fullness of joy. ' I will stand upon my watch, and set me upon the tower, and will watch to see what He will say unto me."—Hab. 2 ! 1, a What about the last time we knelt in prayer? Surely He had more to say to j,:' us than we had to say to Him, and yet KP we never waited a minute to see! We did not give Him opportunity for His gracious response. We rushed away from our King's presence as soon as we y had said our say, and vaguely expected him t® send His answers after us some- * how and sometime, but not there and then. What wonder if they have not yet • reached us! The only wonder is that *^iHe ever speaks at all when we act thus. If Mary had talked to the Lord Jesus all the time she sat at His feet, she would not have "heard His word." But is not this pretty much what we have done?—P. R. Havergal. Oh, the snare and the sin of hurrying through our prayer times! How un- speakable is the loss we sustain be- cause we do not take time to speak fully, to the King and to have Him speak fully" to us.
Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor and evil speaking be- put away from you with all malice. And be ye kind one to another, tender- hearted forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you."—Eph. 4:31-32. 'Siveii The prayer must wait for its answer until some wrong is taken out of the way The wrong feeling toward a brother man, the quarrel the bitterness of which remains, the transaction which we are not willing to review calmly be- cause afraid we may have to say that there is sin in it, the plea whereby we justify conformity to the world—are all to be considered when we stand waiting for the answer that does not come W* are made to ask whether the cause U not in something we have done or not done. It will not take a large sin A small bit of iron will disturb the mag- netic needle. A small grain of sand will grate harshly in the delicate mechanism of the eye.—D. W. Faunce. , C ° m . e b e f o r e H l s Presence with thanksgiving, and make a joyful noise unto Him with psalms."—Psa. t/0 . J, Can we expect further mercies, if we are not thankful for past blessings' If a spirit of discontent and murmur is in our hearts, as though God had not dealt kindly with us, are we in a frame to ap- proach Him, and implore His continued protection? Or if we accept His gifts too lightly, and as a matter of course since we are not impressed with His goodness, have we not missed their prin- cipal benefit, and thus disqualified our- selves to ask or receive added f a vo r s' It is not by accident that the Psalms of David are half petition and half thanks- giving.—William W. Patton Our King is great and gracious; always accessible to the humblest petitioner; He rejects no plea for mercy; His treasu'ry is always open and sufficient; He has legions of angels to despatch to our aid. with i
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