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T h e K i n g ’ s B u s i n e s s
May 1928
great drops of blood falling down to the ground.” What eternities o f difference between such yearning toward God and the listless words of those who in their prayer tell God what He knows and repeat words which from their very character , indicate a desire to influence the humans who hear rather than to touch the Throne of Omnipotence. “ Lord, teach us how to pray.” E xamples F rom O ur L ord Let us now note an example in which the Lord Him self uses this word to teach His disciples how to pray. In Luke 6 :28 our Lord touched on one o f the most difficult lessons we have to learn when He asked us to yearn for ward toward God “ fo r them which despitefully use you.” Do we in our actual experience in praying for those who are our enemies yearn, in any measure as He yearned in Gethsemane, for those who were plotting His destruction? His command to pray “ for those who misuse you” takes on a deeper significance when we realize that the same word is used o f His own prayer, and a very much more pro found meaning as we hear Him pray at the great hour which was our crisis as well as His, “ Father, forgive them! They know not what they do.” And He pleads with us to follow His example. Another time our Lord urged His disciples to pray, to yearn forward, “ lest they enter into temptation” (Luke 22:40 and 46). His first exhortation carried to them the idea that they should wish forward, yearn toward God the Father, hut they did not realize the powers of darkness that were about them and did not have sufficient earnest ness to keep them from sleeping. He, meanwhile, was agonizing in a great yearning that almost cost His life, but when He came to them, “H e found them sleeping.” A second time, in the 46th verse, He urged, “ Why sleep y e? Rise and yearn forward, lest ye enter into temptation.” How many times we think we have prayed when we lightly say in the morning, “ Lead us not into temptation,” and, lacking any clear sense of the danger that lies before us, are surprised to find that we fail, and even surprised that we have slept in the hour o f supreme danger and need. How exceedingly important it is that we hear and under stand that the Master calls us, not merely to utter the words, not merely to record a petition that has not shaken the depths o f our soul, but to wish forward away from the temptation, to “ pass not by it, to turn from it and pass away,” to be “ not found in the seat o f the scorner, nor sitting in the way o f sinners, nor taking counsel from the ungodly,” but with all the deep intensity of our lives to yearn toward Him. Truly, “ ye shall find me, when ye shall search for me [pursue after me] with all your affec tions and desires” (Jer. 29:13). In Mark 11:24 we find the Master again teaching us what our prayer attitude should be. “ What things soever ye desire, when ye pray [wish forward], believe that ye shall receive,” and sharply the question comes home to us, “ Can we believe, have we authority to believe that the thing that we merely passively desire, or would be glad if we might receive, but have no mighty yearning for, will come to us?” HE said, “ When ye pray [when ye wish forward, when ye yearn toward God] fo r the things ye desire,” then “ believe that ye shall receive” and “ ye shall have.” In each of these three important lessons on prayer which our Lord has taught, He uses the same word that we have been studying, and the disciples, when they came to teach, followed the Master’s example. They, too, set the example in their own prayers. ( See Acts 1 :24, Acts 6 :6 and Acts 8:15.)
Trust One Another Look into your brother’s eye, man, And bid him read your own, One-half the strife o f human life Is born o f gmle alone! Deceit creates full half our hates, And half our love it slays. Look into each other’s eyes, men, And meet each other’s gaze. Pardon your brother’s faults, man, And ask that he forgive. Could human sin no pardon win, No mortal soul might live. No need o f heaven, were none forgiven', For none could reach its doors. Pardon your brother’s faults, man, And bid him pardon yours. Feel fo r your brother’s grief, man, No heart is safe from woe. Though lip and eye full oft deny The sorrowing weight below, A gentle wile, a pitying smile, May sweetest balm impart; Peel your brother’s grief, man, And you may win his heart. Stand by your brother’s side, man, And bid him clasp your hand, To him be just, and yield the trust That you from him demand. How simply wise with soul and eyes, To trust and still be true — Do to those we love, man, What we would have them do. (Author Unknown .)
your unaided strength; it is God' who is all the while supplying the impulse, giving you the power to resolve, the strength to perform.” If it were not for the fact that God is working in us, drawing us unto Himself, the Spirit o f God making intercession for us according to the will of God, and .teaching us how to pray, the very attitude o f wishing, yearning, straining forward out of our present attainment would not be possible, nor should we ever be “ changed from glory unto glory into His likeness,” “ He that Cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder o f them that diligently seek Him.” Then let us realize that our Lord Himself set us the example of this attitude in His relation to the Father. Twenty times we find it recorded that He thus prayed. In Luke 3 :21, after His baptism, Jesus was praying; wishing forward; yearning toward God; and heaven was opened and the Holy Ghost descended upon Him, and God the Father said, “ Thou art my beloved Son ; in thee I am well pleased.” In Luke 9:29, when Jesus had gone with Peter and John and James into a mountain to pray, He thus yearned forward toward God, and “ the fashion o f His countenance was altered, and His raiment was white and glistering. And, behold, there talked with him two men, who appeared in glory.” In Luke 2 2 :44, when He was in the Garden o f Gethsemane, He wished forward, yearned Godward “ more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were
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