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Privilege of Prayer
63
himself loves you.”
John 16:26, 27
. “I chose you.... And so the
Father will give you whatever you ask of him in my name.”
John
15:16
. Jesus tells us to pray in His name. But to pray in His name
means more than saying His name at the beginning of the prayer
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and again at the end. It means to pray in the mind and spirit of Jesus.
It means that we believe His promises, depend upon His grace, and
do His work.
God does not ask us to go away by ourselves and spend all our
time praying. We must live a life such as Christ lived. We must work
as well as pray. A person who does nothing but pray will soon stop
praying, or His prayers will become only a habit.
People who stop helping others and doing their Christian duty
have little for which to pray. When they do not work for the Master,
who worked for them, they have nothing to pray about. Their prayers
are only for themselves. They do not pray for other people or for
strength to do God’s work.
We lose blessings when we do not meet together to give strength
and courage to each other. We begin to forget the truths of God’s
Word, and they become less important in our minds. Our minds
are not touched by the Spirit of God, and we become less spiritual.
We lose sympathy for one another when we shut ourselves away
from others. We are not then doing what God planned we should
do. Being friendly brings us into sympathy with others. It makes us
grow and become stronger in the service of God.
We should speak to each other of the love of God and of the
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plan of salvation. This would bring new life to our hearts and to one
another. We would daily learn more about our heavenly Father and
receive more of His grace. We would desire to speak of His love,
and our own hearts would be warmed and encouraged. We will have
more of Christ’s presence when we think and talk about Him and
not so much about ourselves.
We should delight to talk of God and praise Him. If we would
think of Him as often as we are blessed, He would ever be in our
thoughts. We talk about our business because this interests us. We
talk of our friends because we love them. They are part of our joys
and our sorrows. Yet we have a much greater reason to love God
than to love our earthly friends. If we make Him first in our thoughts,
it will be easy for us to talk of His goodness and tell of His power.