Perpetual Prayer
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16 Rejoice evermore.
17 Pray without ceasing.
18 In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.
Our Lord spoke the parable of the widow and the unjust judge to teach us that men should always pray and not faint.
As the widow persevered in seeking one definite thing, the parable references persevering prayer for someone’s blessing when God delays or refuses. The words in the Epistles, which speak of continuing instant in prayer, continuing in prayer, and watching in the same, of praying always in the Spirit, appear more to refer to the whole life being one of prayer. As the soul is filling with the longing for the manifestation of God's glory to us and in us, through us and around us, and with the confidence that He hears the prayers of His children, the inmost life of the soul is continually rising upward in dependence and faith, in longing desire and trustful expectation.
At the close of our meditations, it will not be difficult to say what is needed to live such a prayer life. The first thing is the entire sacrifice of life to God's kingdom and glory.
He who seeks to pray without ceasing because he wants to be very pious and good will never attain it. It is the forgetting of self and yielding ourselves to live for God and His honor that enlarges the heart, teaches us to regard everything in the light of God and His will, and instinctively recognizes in everything around us the need for God's help and blessing, an opportunity for His being glorified.
Because everything is weighed and tested by the one thing that fills the heart with the glory of God, and because the soul has learned that only what is of God can be to Him and His glory, the whole life becomes a looking up, a crying from the inmost heart, for God to prove His power and love and so show forth His glory. The believer awakes to the consciousness that he is one of the watchmen on Zion's walls, one of the Lord's remembrancers, whose call touches and moves the King in heaven to do what would otherwise not be done. He understands how genuine Paul's exhortation was, constantly praying with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit for all the saints and me,' and continue in prayer, withal praying also for us' To forget oneself, to live for God and His kingdom among men, is the way to learn to pray without ceasing.
Learning to pray without ceasing requires forgetting oneself, living for God, and seeking His kingdom among men.
This life devoted to God must be accompanied by the deep confidence that our prayer is effectual. We have seen how our Blessed Lord insisted upon nothing so much in His prayer lessons as faith in the Father as a God who most certainly does what we ask. Ask, and ye shall receive; count confidently on an answer, is with Him the beginning and the end of His teaching
8 For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.
24 Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full.
In proportion as this assurance masters us, and it becomes a settled thing that our prayers do tell, and that God does what we ask, we dare not neglect the use of this remarkable power: the soul turns wholly to God, and our life becomes prayer. We see that the Lord needs and takes time because we and all around us are the creatures of time under the law of growth. Still, knowing that not one single prayer of faith can be lost, that there is sometimes a need for the storing up and accumulating of prayer, and that persevering prayer is irresistible, prayer becomes the quiet, persistent living of our life of desire and faith in the presence of our God. Do not let us any longer, by our reasonings, limit and enfeeble such free and sure promises of the living God, robbing them of their power and us of the extraordinary confidence they are meant to inspire. Not in God, not in His secret will, not in the limitations of His promises, but in us, in ourselves is the hindrance; we are not what we should be to obtain the promise. Let us open our hearts to God’s words of promise in all their simplicity and truth: they will search and humble us, lift us, and make us glad and strong. And to the faith that knows it gets what it asks, prayer is not a work or a burden but a joy and a triumph; it becomes a necessity and a second nature.
Again, this union of intense desire and firm confidence is nothing but the life of the Holy Spirit within us. The Holy Spirit dwells in us, hides Himself in the depths of our being, and stirs the desire after the Unseen and the Divine, after God Himself. Now in groanings that cannot be uttered, then in clear and conscious assurance; now in special distinct petitions for more revelation of Christ to ourselves, then in pleadings for a soul, a work, the Church or the world, it is always and alone the Holy Spirit who draws out the heart to thirst for God, to long for His being made known and glorified. Where the child of God lives and walks in the Spirit, where he is not content to remain carnal but seeks to be spiritual, in everything a fit organ for the Divine Spirit to reveal the life of Christ and Christ Himself, there the never-ceasing intercession-life of the Blessed Son cannot but reveal and repeat itself in our experience. Because the Spirit of Christ prays in us, our prayer must be heard; because it is we who pray in the Spirit, there is a need for time, patience, and continual renewing of the prayer until every obstacle is conquered. The harmony between God's Spirit and ours is perfect.
But the chief thing we need for such a life of unceasing prayer is to know that Jesus teaches us to pray. We have begun to understand what His teaching is. Not the communication of new thoughts or views, not the discovery of failure or error, not the stirring up of desire and faith, of however important all this be, but the taking us into the fellowship of His prayer-life before the Father-this it is by which Jesus teaches. The sight of Jesus praying made the disciples long and ask to be taught to pray.
The faith of the ever-praying Jesus, whose alone is the power to pray, teaches us truly to pray. We know why: He who prays is our Head and our Life. All He has is ours and is given to us when we give ourselves all to Him. By His blood, He leads us into the immediate presence of God. The inner sanctuary is our home, and we dwell there. And He that lives so near God, and knows that He has been brought near to bless those who are far, cannot but pray. Christ makes us partakers with Himself of His prayer-power and prayer-life. We understand then that our true aim must not be to work much and have prayer enough to keep the work right but to pray much and work enough for the power and blessing obtained in prayer to find its way through us to men. It is Christ who ever lives to pray, who saves and reigns. He communicates His prayer life to us: He maintains it in us if we trust Him. He is surety for our praying without ceasing. Yes, Christ teaches us to pray by showing how He does it, does it in us, and leads us to do it in Him and like Him. Christ is all, the life and the strength for a never-ceasing prayer life.
It is the sight of this, the sight of the ever-praying Christ as our life, that enables us to pray without ceasing. Because His priesthood is the power of an endless life, that resurrection-life that never fades and never fails, and because His life is our life, praying without ceasing can become to us nothing less than the life-joy of heaven. So the Apostle says: Rejoice evermore; pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks.' Borne up between the never-ceasing joy and the never-ceasing praise, never-ceasing prayer manifests the power of eternal life, where Jesus always prays. The union between the Vine and the branch is a prayer-union. The highest conformity to Christ, the most blessed participation in the glory of His heavenly life, is that we take part in His work of intercession: He and we live ever to pray. In the experience of our union with Him, praying without ceasing becomes a possibility, a reality, the holiest and most blessed part of our holy and blessed fellowship with God. We have our abode within the veil, in the presence of the Father. What the Father says, we do; what the Son says, the Father does. Praying without ceasing is the earthly manifestation of heaven that comes down to us, the foretaste of life, where people rest not day or night in the song of worship and adoration.
8 And the four beasts had each of them six wings about him; and they were full of eyes within: and they rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come.
9 And when those beasts give glory and honour and thanks to him that sat on the throne, who liveth for ever and ever,
10 The four and twenty elders fall down before him that sat on the throne, and worship him that liveth for ever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying,
11 Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.
Originally all things did the will of God, and if creation is now subject to vanity, some day it will be delivered into the glorious liberty of the sons of God, and God’s will shall be done on earth as it is in heaven. Notice that the will of God brought all things into existence, and that that will guarantees their ultimate redemption.
They resemble the frontispiece or illuminated capitals of the old missals. There is no form for the Divine Being. God is Spirit, and His glory can only be hinted at by appropriate imagery. His being should excite emotions in our spirit similar to those which these objects excite in our mind. The jasper with its transparent brilliance, the sardine or cornelian with its fiery red, the emerald with its refreshing beauty, are laid under contribution to describe what cannot be described. The throne bespeaks majestic authority and power. The worship of the elders reflects that of Israel and the Church, Rev 21:12; Rev 21:14; the thunder, God’s awful holiness; the seven lamps, the searching, cleansing purity of His Spirit; the glassy sea, the mystery of His ways; the four living creatures, the homage of creation.