Matthew 18:19,20

THE BELIEVER’S PRAYER

‘If two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of My Father which is in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them.’

Matthew 18:19

The very life and soul of religion is prayer. Religion is a bond between persons. It is God’s fellowship. ‘Enoch walked with God’ remains the most adequate description of the life of the earnest Christian man.

I. Conditions of prayer.

(a) Prayer must not be made by Christians for any but righteous objects. Prayer is to be made in the Name of Christ, which implies that all our petitions shall be such as Christ Himself can second.

(b) Prayer must not be selfish. Christian prayer is characteristically the prayer of a church, the prayer of two or three gathered together in the Name of Christ to pray for common objects.

(c) Prayer must be fervent and persistent, even importunate. Prayer is a spiritual force.

II. Objects of prayer.—A large part of prayer must, of course, always be for conformity of our own desires and wills to the Will of God, but the Christian will pray for the extension of the kingdom of righteousness, and this includes that large division of prayer upon which all the apostles insisted with remarkable earnestness, intercession for other people.

III. Guidance in prayer.—It is our duty to accept Our Lord’s own guidance.

(a) By accepting His revelation that the God to Whom we pray is Our Father. If the question is put, What things may we pray for? the answer is, We may pray for whatever a child may ask his father for, and that is everything he needs. The thought of God’s Fatherhood reminds us that being indisposed to pray to our Heavenly Father must be a sign that all is not well between us.

(b) We should accept the guidance of Christ’s example. Again and again we are told that Our Lord prayed before undertaking some of His work. Once it is recorded that He remained all night in prayer to God. He realised His Sonship in active communion, and we must realise our Sonship in like manner.

(c) We may do great work if we will only teach others to pray. That is the greatest blessing a parent can confer upon his children, but if schoolmasters tell us true it is a blessing that parents often withhold from them. We should tell our children about this high privilege of prayer. Only how can we teach others to pray if we do not pray ourselves?

—Canon Beeching.

Illustration

‘General Gordon records it as his constant experience that in his dealings with African chiefs he always found that negotiations smoothed themselves when he prayed for a chief before the interview. It was as though communications had already passed between them.’