<< Previous Page

Back to Contents >>

THE KNEELING CHRISTIAN
by Unknown Christian

At the raising of Lazarus our Lord’s prayer had as its first utterance a note of thanksgiving. “Father, I thank Thee that Thou heardest Me” (John xi. 41). He said it for those around to hear. Yes, and for us to hear.

You may perhaps be wondering why it is that we should specially give thanks to God for His great glory when we kneel in prayer; and why we should spend any time in thinking of and gazing upon that glory. But is He not the King of Glory? All He is and all He does is glory. His holiness is “glorious” (Exod. xv. 11). His name is glorious (Deut. xxviii. 58). His work is “glorious” (Psa. cxi. 3). His power is glorious (Col. i. 11). His voice is glorious (Isa. xxx. 30).

All things bright and beautiful
All creatures great and small.
All things wise and wonderful,
The Lord God made them all.
for His glory.

“For of him and through him and unto him are all things; to whom be glory for ever” (Rom. xi. 36). And this is the God who bids us come to Him in prayer. This God is our God, and He has “gifts for men” (Psa. lxviii. 18). God says that everyone that is called by His name has been created for His glory (Isa. xliii. 7). His Church is to be a “glorious” Church — holy and without blemish (Eph. v. 27). Have you ever fully realized that the Lord Jesus desires to share with us the glory we see in Him? This is His great gift to you and me, His redeemed ones. Believe me, the more we have of God’s glory, the less shall we seek His gifts. Not only in that day “when he shall come to be glorified in his saints” (II Thess. i. 10) is there glory for us, but here and now — today. He wishes us to be partakers of His glory. Did not our Lord Himself say so? “The glory which thou has given me, I have given unto them,” He declares (John xvii. 22). What is God’s command? “Arise, shine, for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee.” Nay, more than this: “His glory shall be seen upon thee,” says the inspired prophet (Isa. lx. 1, 2).

God would have people say of us as St. Peter said of the disciples of old: “The Spirit of Glory and the Spirit of God resteth upon you” (I Peter iv. 14). Would not that be an answer to most of our prayers? Could we ask for anything better? How can we get this glory? How are we to reflect it? Only as the result of prayer. It is when we pray, that the Holy Spirit takes of the things of Christ and reveals them unto us (John xvi. 15).

It was when Moses prayed, “Show me, I pray thee, thy glory,” that he not only saw somewhat of it, but shared something of that glory, and his own face shone with the light of it (Exod. xxxiii. 18, xxxiv. 29). And when we, too, gaze upon the “glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (II Cor. iv. 6), we shall see not only a glimpse of that glory, but we shall gain something of it ourselves. Now, that is prayer, and the highest result of prayer. Nor is there any other way of securing that glory, that God may be glorified in us (Isa. lx. 21).

Let us often meditate upon Christ’s glory — gaze upon it and so reflect it and receive it. This is what happened to our Lord’s first disciples. They said in awed tones, “We beheld his glory!” Yes, but what followed? A few plain, unlettered, obscure fishermen companied with Christ a little while, seeing His glory; and lo! they themselves caught something of that glory. And then others marveled and “took knowledge of them that they had been with Jesus” (Acts iv. 13). And when we can declare, with St. John, “Yea, and our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ” (I John i. 3), people will say the same of us: “They have been with Jesus!”

As we lift up our soul in prayer to the living God, we gain the beauty of holiness as surely as a flower becomes beautiful by living in the sunlight. Was not our Lord Himself transfigured when He prayed? And the “very fashion” of our countenance will change, and we shall have our Mount of Transfiguration when prayer has its rightful place in our lives. And men will see in our faces “the outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace.” Our value to God and to man is in exact proportion to the extent in which we reveal the glory of God to others.

We have dwelt so much upon the glory of Him to Whom we pray, that we must not now speak of His grace.

What is prayer? It is a sign of spiritual life. I should as soon expect life in a dead man as spiritual life in a prayerless soul! Our spirituality and our fruitfulness are always in proportion to the reality of our prayers. If, then, we have at all wandered away from home in the matter of prayer, let us today resolve, “I will arise and go unto my Father, and say unto Him, Father —.”

At this point I laid down my pen, and on the page of the first paper I picked up were these words: “The secret of failure is that we see men rather than God. Romanism trembled when Martin Luther saw God. The ‘great awakening’ sprang into being when Jonathan Edwards saw God. The world became the parish of one man when John Wesley saw God. Multitudes were saved when Whitfield saw God. Thousands of orphans were fed when George Muller saw God. And He is ‘the same yesterday, today, and forever.’ “

Is it not time that we got a new vision of God — of God in all His glory? Who can say what will happen when the Church sees God? But let us not wait for others. Let us, each one for himself, with unveiled face and unsullied heart, get this vision of the glory of the Lord.

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matt. v. 8). No missioner whom it has been my joy to meet ever impressed me quite as much as Dr. Wilbur Chapman. He wrote to a friend: “I have learned some great lessons concerning prayer. At one of our missions in England the audiences were exceedingly small. But I received a note saying that an American missionary . . . was going to pray God’s blessing down upon our work. He was known as ‘Praying Hyde.’ Almost instantly the tide turned. The hall became packed, and at my first invitation fifty men accepted Christ as their Savior. As we were leaving I said, ‘Mr. Hyde, I want you to pray for me.’ He came to my room, turned the key in the door, and dropped on his knees, and waited five minutes without a single syllable coming from his lips. I could hear my own heart thumping and his beating. I felt the hot tears running down my face. I knew I was with God. Then, with upturned face, down which the tears were streaming, he said ‘O God!’ Then for five minutes at least he was still again; and then, when he knew that he was talking with God . . . there came up from the depth of his heart such petitions for men as I had never heard before. I rose from my knees to know what real prayer was. We believe that prayer is mighty, and we believe it as we never did before.”

Dr. Chapman used to say, “It was a season of prayer with John Hyde that made me realize what real prayer was. I owe to him more than I owe to any man for showing me what a prayer-life is, and what a real consecrated life is. . . . Jesus Christ became a new Ideal to me, and I had a glimpse of His prayer-life; and I had a longing which has remained to this day to be a real praying man.” And God the Holy Spirit can so teach us.

Oh, ye who sigh and languish
And mourn your lack of power,
Hear ye this gentle whisper:
“Could ye not watch one hour?”
For fruitfulness and blessing
There is no royal road;
The power for holy service
Is intercourse with God.

CHAPTER 6: HOW SHALL I PRAY?

How shall I pray? Could there be a more important question for a Christian man to ask? How shall I approach the King of Glory?

When we read Christ’s promises regarding prayer we are apt to think that He puts far too great a power into our hands — unless, indeed, we hastily conclude that it is impossible for Him to act as He promises. He says, ask “anything,” “whatsoever,” “what ye will,” and it shall be done. But then He puts in a qualifying phrase. He says that we are to ask in His name. That is the condition, and the only one, although, as we shall remind ourselves later on, it is sometimes couched in different words.

If, therefore, we ask and do not receive, it can only be that we are not fulfilling this condition. If then, we are true disciples of His — if we are sincere — we shall take pains (infinite pains, if need be) to discover just what it means to ask in His name; and we shall not rest content until we have fulfilled that condition. Let us read the promise again to be quite sure about it. “Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask anything in my name, I will do it” (John xiv. 13, 14).

This was something quite new, for our Lord said so. “Hitherto ye have asked nothing in my name,” but now, “ask and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full” (John xvi. 24).

Five times over our Lord repeats this simple condition, “In my name” (John xiv. 13, 14; xv. 16; xvi. 23, 24, 26). Evidently something very important is here implied. It is more than a condition — it is also a promise, an encouragement, for our Lord’s biddings are always His enablings. What, then, does it mean to ask in His name? We must know this at all costs, for it is the secret of all power in prayer. And it is possible to make a wrong use of those words. Our Lord said, “Many shall come in my name, saying, ‘I am Christ,’ and shall deceive many” (Matt. xxiv. 5). He might well have said, “And many shall think they are praying to the Father in my name, whilst deceiving themselves.”

Does it mean just adding the words, “and all this we ask in the name of Jesus Christ,” at the end of our prayers?

Many people apparently think that it does. But have you never heard — or offered — prayers full of self-will and selfishness which ended up in that way, “for Christ’s sake. Amen”?

God could not answer the prayers St. James refers to in his epistle just because those who offered them added, “we ask these things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Those Christians were asking “amiss” (James iv. 3). A wrong prayer cannot be made right by the addition of some mystic phrase!

Continue >>

Back to Top

<<Back Home