PRAYER

^[p. 45] PRAYER

However exalted our standing is, and it could not be greater, I remark that the blessed God always deals with us according to our state. He looks upon the heart; he that asketh receiveth, he that seeketh findeth. He deals with us according to the way we deal with Him. He has satisfied His own heart in accepting us in the Beloved; we are always there in His eye, but as to our enjoyment of His wondrous grace, it is to him that hath shall more be given. It is striking the way the sentence — Them that love him, occurs. I am persuaded that if there were more real prayer in private, God seeing in secret, there would be a large rewarding openly. It is not that there is not time spent avowedly in prayer, but I feel that one can repeat sentence after sentence and desire after desire, all right in themselves, without there being a sense in the soul that they are really spoken unto God and that He hears, that I have had, so to speak, an audience. A beggar gives me a great idea of prayer; he watches me to see the effect his appeal makes on me; he is not thinking of his words at all. “Watch and pray”, that is, I watch what God will do.

I wish you had said a little on private prayer. Here I believe is the real defect. Every man was to build the wall opposite his own house. See Nehemiah. I do not believe that a man is fit to pray in the assembly until he has settled all his own affairs with the Lord. Nay more, I find that it is a great thing, however imperfectly I do it, to bring the interests of the Lord, and those used of Him in those interests, before Him, in the measure in which He has allowed me to be connected with them. I am assured that one is much helped by commanding personally to the Lord those whom we believe “have a good conscience, in all things desirous to walk rightly” (Hebrews 13: 18).