United Prayer
When our Aen called His disciples together, His one desire was that they should gather round Him as a closely united company of believers. But they were not ready for this; even at the Last Supper there was strife amongst them which of them should be the greatest. After Christ’s Resurrection there was a marked difference.
When He had breathed upon them, and said: ‘Receive ye the Holy Ghost,”’ they were through the Spirit moulded into one body. During the forty days when He was no longer with them, their hearts were knit together in love. After our Lord’s Ascension, during the ten days of prayer, they ‘all with one accord continued sted-
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= fastly in prayer,’ each one praying, not alone for himself, but united with others, for the Holy Spirit to descend on all.
The Holy Spirit found in these praying disciples a Body in which to dwell, and they were truly “‘one heart and one soul.”” And so “the holy temple in the Lord” was begun, built upon Jesus Christ, ‘“‘ the Chief Cornerstone,” in whom “ye also are builded together for an habitation of God in the Spirit”.
(Eph. ii. 22). The very first thing we read of the early Church on the Day of Pentecost is, that “‘they continued daily with one accord in prayer.”
United prayer is the secret of the power of the Church. In united prayer individual desires are set aside, in order to pray with and for others; in united prayer a heavenly love is exercised, and the Holy Spirit is able to carry on His gracious work in building up the Body of Christ.
This is what the Lord Jesus in His High Priestly prayer asked of the Father for all future believers, ‘“‘ THat they may all be one, even as Thou, Father, - art in Me, and I in Thee, THAT THEY ALSO MAY BE ONE IN Us, that the world may believe that Thou didst send Me. And the glory which Thou hast given Me, I have given unto them; THAT THEY MAY BE ONE, even as We are one; I in them and Thou in Me, that they may be PERFECTED INTO ONE; that the world may know that Thou didst send Me, and lovedst them even as Thou lovedst Me.”’
Four times Christ prayed definitely for the mutual oneness of all believers. This would be the sign of the new birth from heaven, “perfect in one,’’ even as the Father and Son were one. It would be a proof to the world that Christ had come from God, and that God had given the same love into the hearts of His disciples, as the Father had bestowed on Him.
We learn from Church History that when the heathen saw how the Christians, drawn from different nations, and formerly deadly enemies, learned to love one another, and even to sacrifice themselves for the sake of others, they exclaimed: ‘Behold how these Christians love one another; only the power of God could have worked such a miracle.”’
This thought of our oneness in Jesus Christ gives point to the question: Was this unanimity of the disciples during the ten days of waiting, an indispensable element in the wonderful answer to these prayers? Is the same unity indispensable in our day? Would an ever-increasing unity not give power to those who pray on earth, as well as in heaven, where prayers are heard and answered?
We thank God for the prayer that ascends to heaven from His people all over the world. There are Societies, like the China Inland Mission, with more than one thousand missionaries, who never ask for money, but receive the support for all their missionaries from God Himself in answer to daily united prayer.
And yet in the case of many prayers, the motive too often is the local interest in one’s own sphere of labour. When Mr Mott, speaking on this subject, alludes to the appalling lack of true intercessors, he means men and women who can really pray and plead with God for the Church in her feeble state and her great need of the Holy Spirit. This is the primary need that. God’s people realize that they must pray, not only for their own narrow circle, but for the whole world.
True, the work of prayer begins at home, but it must not stay there. Believers must meet together and bring the need of the Church as a whole before God, and continue before Him in prayer until the promise is fulfilled: ‘“‘ Shall God not avenge His elect who call upon Him night and day?”
Paul writes to the Colossians: “I would have you know how greatly I strive for you, and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh” (Col. ii. 1). And to the Church at Ephesus, that they should pray always “with all prayer and supplication, watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints’? (Eph. vi. 18).
There is one Body and one Spirit. As God’s children bear up the whole Body of Christ in intercession before the Throne of Grace, their hearts become filled with Christ’s love to the whole world, and they learn to expect great things from God.
When we pray only for our own Church and its Mission work, we are in danger of allowing our own interests and the honour of our Church to occupy too much of our thoughts, so that our prayers and our faith do not reach out whole-heartedly with Christ-like love to the interests of God’s Kingdom. On the other hand, if the love of Christ constrains us, and our hearts are full of the great thoughts of God, we will have more freedom in prayer to plead, not only for our own personal concerns, but for the glory of God’s Name, and for His people all over the world.
May these thoughts help us to a deeper insight into our high-priestly calling. Let us pray faithfully for the Mission work in which we are specially interested. But let us not rest content with that. Remember the work of the Churches and Missionary Societies around you. This will widen your sympathies, and teach you to love like Christ. Think of what you have heard of the needy state of the Church in different parts of the world. Pray earnestly that God may send His Spirit with power over the whole earth.
Pray that in the midst of the misery caused by the war the oneness of the Spirit may be preserved among God’s people. Live as one who is a member of a spiritual Kingdom, which seeks to save the whole world. Cultivate the consciousness that you are one of a number of intercessors who give God no rest, day or night, until He has made His Church a praise in the earth.