PRAYING FOR OTHERS

PRAYING FOR OTHERS

As to your question about praying for others, and the experience or gain which we derive from doing so, even though our prayers are not answered - I have asked it to myself more than once.

In the first place, praying for others can only flow from a heart at rest about itself, and knowing in itself the value of the desires which it expresses for another. I could not be true or happy in praying otherwise. Secondly: if I am praying for another, according to the will of God, and in concert with the Spirit, I am in fellowship with the Spirit. It is not a question whether my prayer is successful. I have been in company with the Spirit of Christ in the prayer, and my own soul is invigorated by the very passage of His thought through my mind. I cannot have a divine desire for another awakened in me, but by His Spirit, and being awakened there, I am sensible, on account of it, of the strength and blessedness in Him whose desire is passing through ^[p. 60] my heart and mind; and this spiritual desire will be accomplished according to God; that is, according to His mind, not after man’s judgment. Therefore when a spiritual desire is awakened and occupies your heart, touching any of His people, you are not only invigorated by this stream of divine thought passing through you, but you may rest assured that God will effectuate it in some way, though in a way manifestly of Himself. I should not keep a list of people to pray for, but I am thankful when I remember any, as I believe and feel my Lord thinks of them. What good is there in anything else here? May we abound therein, and we should if the Lord were our strength - the armour on (see Ephesians 6: 10 - 18).