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Sunday, January 29, 2012

Prayer requires our whole selves

In one word, the entire man without reservation must love God. So it takes the same entire man to do the praying which God requires of men. All the powers of man must be engaged in it. God cannot tolerate a divided heart in the love He requires of men, neither can He bear with a divided man in praying.
In the one hundred and nineteenth Psalm the Psalmist teaches this very truth in these
words:
“Blessed are they that keep his testimonies, and that seek him with the whole heart.”
It takes whole-hearted men to keep God’s commandments and it demands the same sort of men to seek God. These are they who are counted “blessed.” Upon these wholehearted ones God’s approval rests.

Bringing the case closer home to himself the Psalmist makes this declaration as to his practice: “With my whole heart have I sought thee; O let me not wander from thy commandments.”

And further on, giving us his prayer for a wise and understanding heart, he tells us his
purposes concerning the keeping of God’s law:
“Give me understanding and I shall keep thy law; Yea, I shall observe it with my whole heart.”

Just as it requires a whole heart given to God to gladly and fully obey God’s commandments,
so it takes a whole heart to do effectual praying.

This post is one of a series, taken from The Essentials of Prayer, by E. M. Bounds. Found through the Christian Classics Ethereal Library, here. Public Domain. The previous post in the series is here.

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