The Word and Prayer
Lirtte of the Word, with little prayer, is death to the spiritual life. Much of the Word, with little prayer, gives a sickly life. Much prayer with little of the Word gives more life, but without stedfastness. A full measure of the Word and prayer each day gives a healthy and powerful life. Think of the Lord Jesus. In His youth and manhood, He treasured the Word in His heart. In the Temptation in the wilderness, and on every opportunity that presented itself — till He cried out on the cross in death: ‘‘My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken me?’’ He showed that the Word of God filled His heart. And in His prayer-life He manifested two things: first, that the Word supplies us with material for prayer, and encourages us in expecting everything from God. The second is that it is only by prayer that we can live such a life that every word of God ean be fulfilled in us. And how then can we come to this, so that the Word and prayer may each have its undivided right over us? There is only one answer. Our lives must be wholly transformed. We must get a new, a healthy, a heavenly life, in which the hunger after God’s Word, and the thirst after God, express themselves in prayer as naturally as do the needs of our earthly life. Hvery manifestation of the power of the flesh in us, and the weakness of our spiritual life, must drive us to the econvici a i i ie Tetion that God will, through the powerful operation of His Holy Spirit, work out a new and strong life in us.
Oh, that we but understand that the Holy Spirit is essentially the Spirit of the Word and the Spirit of Prayer. He will cause the Word to become a joy and a light in our souls, and He will also most surely help us in prayer to know the mind and will of God, and find in it our delight. If we as ministers wish to explain these things, and to train God’s people for the inheritance which is prepared for them, then we must commit ourselves from this moment forward to the leading of the Holy Spirit; must, in faith in what He will do in us, appropriate the heavenly life of Christ as He lived it here on earth, with certain expectation that the Spirit, who filled Him with the Word and prayer, will also accomplish that work in us.
Yes, let us believe it, that the Spirit who is in us is the Spirit of the Lord Jesus, and that He is in us to make us truly partakers of His life. If we firmly believe this, and set our hearts upon it, then ‘there will come a change in our intercourse with the Word and prayer, such as we could not have thought possible. Believe it firmly, expect it surely.