With Christ in the School of Prayer, by Andrew Murray, 28

This post continues a series of excerpts from With Christ in the School of Prayer, by Andrew Murray. I thank the Christian Classics Ethereal Library for making this public domain work available. To see their post of the book, go here. The previous post is here. As usual in this blog, long quotations are in this color.

That the Lord should have thought it needful in so many forms to repeat the truth, is a lesson of deep import.  It proves that He knows our heart, how doubt and distrust toward God are natural to us, and how easily we are inclined to rest in prayer as a religious work without an answer.  He knows too how, even when we believe that God is the Hearer of prayer, believing prayer that lays hold of the promise, is something spiritual, too high and difficult for the half-hearted disciple.  He therefore at the very outset of His instruction to those who would learn to pray, seeks to lodge this truth deep into their hearts:  prayer does avail much; ask and ye shall receive; every one that asketh, receiveth. This is the fixed eternal law of the kingdom:  if you ask and receive not, it must be because there is something amiss or wanting in the prayer.  Hold on; let the Word and the Spirit teach you to pray aright, but do not let go the confidence He seeks to waken:  Every one that asketh, receiveth.

Thanks for reading!