510
THE KING ’S 'BUSINESS
PROMOTION OF INTERCESSION
1915 1916 Will you and I respond to His call in this New Year? That we may know what such a response will involve may we let the Holy Spirit reveal to us the condition o f our prayer life in the year just closed and empower us to determine what it shall be in the New Year just opening. Has my prayer life been powerless because o f some besetting sin? Has my prayer life been hindered by haste, irregularity, lack of definiteness, lack o f system, insufficient preparation, unbelief, lack o f communion with God through study o f His W ord? Has my prayer life been fruitless? Have I really had such power with God that I have had power with people? Have I had definite answers to prayer week by week? Has my prayer life been restricted to certain stated seasons each day or have I come to know from experience what it is to pray “without ceasing?” Has my prayer life been limited to my own life? to my own station? to my own particular kind o f work? to my own Mission? Am I truly an inter cessor after God’s own heart? Has my prayer life been starved, o f have I devoted even one month o f my daily Bible study to letting the Lord teach me to. pray from His own example, His prayers, His precepts, commands, and promises about prayer ? Has my prayer life been joyless? Has prayer been more a duty than a privi lege ? Do I love to pray ? Has my prayer life been growing? Do I daily know more o f the meaning, efficacy, and power o f prayer ? Has my prayer life been sacrificial? Has it cost me anything in time, strength, vitality, love? | “Deeper than the need for men; deeper, far, than the need for money ; deeper'down at the bottom o f our spiritless life is the need for the forgotten secret o f prevailing, world-prayer. Considering the fearful consequences o f it all, something like' criminal negligence has marked for years the attitude o f the Church toward the matchless power o f prayer for the world. But if fifty men of our generation will enter the holy place of prayer and become, henceforth, men whose hearts God has touched with the prayer pas sion, the history o f the Church will be changed.’’—Dr. Robert E. Speer. , Will you be one o f the fifty? God calls fo r volunteers. W ill those who respond to the call 1— Prepare themselves for service through devoting their daily Bible study for one month or longer to the study o f prayer. 2— Practice immediately and constantly whatever lessons the Lord teaches them on prayer. 3— Promote intercession in every way they possibly can, in their family, neighbor hood, Mission station, and church. Will any who care to record their response to this call please send their name to Miss Ruth Paxson, Chairman o f the Committee on the Promotion o f Intercession, Office o f China Continuation Committee, No. 5 Quinsan Gardens, Shanghai. Best Wishes for a Happy and, Fruitful New Year. ly r iS S RUTH PAXSON, who has been working under the Young Women’s Christian Association in China, has been greatly used of God, She sent out a call to prayer, which will be of interest to our readers. It was sent out at the beginning of the year, but has just reached this country. Miss Paxson is returning home on furlough and expects to reach California some time in June. The situation now is absolutely unique in the history o f the Christian religion, unique in opportunity, unique in danger, unique in responsibility, unique in duty. The Church is confronting a rabidly climaxing world-crisis; stupendous changes are constituting the greatest single opportunity which has ever confronted the Christian religion; and it is an opportunity that will not linger.”—Dr. John R. Mott. Therefore, “the Church needs a hundred times more prayer.” God is once more calling loudly His people to a revival o f faith in the divine efficacy of prayer.
Made with FlippingBook - Online catalogs