With Christ in the School of Prayer, by Andrew Murray, 57

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.

Solemn thought! O why is it that we do not obey the injunction of the Master more heartily, and cry more earnestly for labourers? There are two reasons for this. The one is: We miss the compassion of Jesus, which gave rise to this request for prayer. When believers learn that to love their neighbours as themselves, that to live entirely for God’s glory in their fellow-men, is the Father’s first commandment to His redeemed ones, they will accept of the perishing ones as the charge entrusted to them by their Lord. And, accepting them not only as a field of labour, but as the objects of loving care and interest, it will not be long before compassion towards the hopelessly perishing will touch their heart, and the cry ascend with an earnestness till then unknown: Lord! send labourers. The other reason for the neglect of the command, the want of faith, will then make itself felt, but will be overcome as our pity pleads for help. We believe too little in the power of prayer to bring about definite results. We do not live close enough to God, and are not enough entirely given up to His service and Kingdom, to be capable of the confidence that He will give it in answer to our prayer. O let us pray for a life so one with Christ, that His compassion may stream into us, and His Spirit be able to assure us that our prayer avails.

Such prayer will ask and obtain a twofold blessing. There will first be the desire for the increase of men entirely given up to the service of God. It is a terrible blot upon the Church of Christ that there are times when actually men cannot be found for the service of the Master as ministers, missionaries, or teachers of God’s Word. As God’s children make this a matter of supplication for their own circle or Church, it will be given. The Lord Jesus is now Lord of the harvest. He has been exalted to bestow gifts—the gifts of the Spirit. His chief gifts are men filled with the Spirit. But the supply and distribution of the gifts depend on the co-operation of Head and members. It is just prayer will lead to such co-operation; the believing suppliants will be stirred to find the men and the means for the work.

Sunspots 778

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

The Arts: Some hard-working Japanese created a mile-long wooden Xylophone that plays "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring," by Bach.

Christianity: (and Politics) An article pointing out how Christianity is privileged, not persecuted, in the US.

Christianity Today says that those of us who oppose protesters who want to open up the country should have compassion on them.

Computing: Gizmodo reports that accepting a lot of seemingly random Facebook Friend requests makes it more likely that you will be a target for questionable Facebook stuff.

Listverse tells us how telemarketers work.

Gizmo's Freeware reports on a free (you don't even have to register) on-line tool that enhances and enlarges pictures.

Education: Microsoft Word has started flagging the use of a double space at the end of a sentence. Some of you aren't going to like it. The article tells how to bypass that AI correction.


Environment: Earther reports that the Trump Administration is planning to allow Uranium mining near the Grand Canyon, which, says Earther, is unnecessary -- we don't have a shortage.
 
Science: Gizmodo reports that there seem to be several objects in our solar system that were captured from some other star's system.

I never thought of this one, but why not? Scientists are looking for DNA in streams, and finding out about land animals from the DNA they leave behind, according to The Scientist.

Sports: FiveThirtyEight notes the retirement of Muffet McGraw as head women's basketball coach at Notre Dame, and suggests that achieving as many wins as she had will be nearly impossible in a few years. (Three active coaches have more wins than McGraw's 934.)

The graphic used in these posts is from NASA, hence, it is free to use like this.

Thanks for looking!

Treatment of aliens/strangers in Exodus, Leviticus and Deuteronomy

Exodus 22:21 “You shall not wrong an alien or oppress him, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.
Exodus 23:9 “You shall not oppress an alien, for you know the heart of an alien, since you were aliens in the land of Egypt.
Leviticus 19:10 You shall not glean your vineyard, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor and for the foreigner. I am the Yahweh your God. (This command is repeated in other parts of the Bible.)
Leviticus 19:33 “‘If a stranger lives as a foreigner with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. 34 The stranger who lives as a foreigner with you shall be to you as the native-born among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you lived as foreigners in the land of Egypt. I am Yahweh your God.
Deuteronomy 10:19 Therefore love the foreigner, for you were foreigners in the land of Egypt.

The Bible also says, in reference to a specific refugee crisis:

Isaiah 16:3 Give counsel! Execute justice! Make your shade like the night in the middle of the noonday! Hide the outcasts! Don’t betray the fugitive! 4a Let my outcasts dwell with you! As for Moab, be a hiding place for him from the face of the destroyer.

The Moabites hadn't always been good to Israel. See Joshua 24:9, Judges 3:12-30, and 1 Samuel 12:9.

And, of course, there's always the Golden Rule: Matthew 7:12 Therefore whatever you desire for men to do to you, you shall also do to them; for this is the law and the prophets.

(World English Bible, public domain.)

What Christians should pray for in our private prayers, according to Philip Yancey

The graphic above is also a link to my Flickr photostream, where it is available in larger sizes.

In his excellent book, Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference? (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2006. See here for the book's web site.) Philip Yancey has a chapter on "What to Pray For." In it, he discusses these appropriate subjects for prayer:
Heart Desire
Yancey writes: "What is the point of prayer if not to express our heart's desire, especially when it matches what we know to be God's will on earth?" Of course, many of my prayers, and probably many of yours, are for things about which we do not know God's will for certain.
Peace, or Trust
Here Yancey is not speaking of world peace, but of praying for peace, because we believe that the matter we are praying about, whatever it may be, is in God's good hands.
Faith, or Trust
Yancey describes a special kind of faith, which he calls fidelity - "a hang-on-by-the-fingernails faith against all odds, no matter the cost."
Complaint, or Lament
Many prayers in the Bible are complaints to God, such as the book of Lamentations, a good many of the Psalms, and the complaints of Mary and Martha about the death of Lazarus. We think that God should have acted, and He doesn't seem to have done so.
God's presence Yancey believes that we should pray that the Holy Spirit would live through us. We must act that way, too!
Compassion
The author describes his own prayers for AIDS victims in Africa as an example. He says that he prays for health-care workers, and for philanthropic and governmental activity aimed at helping AIDS victims, and prevention.
Grace
No one deserves God's grace, but we should pray for it for ourselves, because God gives it to us, and no one deserves it. Paul prayed for grace for the new churches, in his letters.
Preparations
By this, Yancey means praying that we may be prepared for death, of ourselves, or of those we care for. He isn't talking about praying that we will go to heaven. He is telling me that I should pray that I will have a Christ-like attitude toward those around me as I begin to suffer from whatever it is that will end my life, and that I will manifest a Christ-like attitude toward anyone in that state, for example with dementia, if it becomes my responsibility to care for them.
Gratitude
Probably no one is as grateful to God as much as she should be, or grateful for all the things she should be. We take so much for granted -- air, beauty, water, the ability to listen and look, for example.

A great deal more could be said about each of these topics, and Yancey has said quite a bit about each of them.

Yancey writes: "At its best, my prayer does not seek to manipulate God into doing my will -- quite the opposite. Prayer enters the pool of God's own love and widens outward."

I have previously posted on what the New Testament church prayed for. There's almost no overlap with Yancey's discussion, in part because he is writing about personal prayer. I have also posted on the ACTS scheme of praying.

I originally posted this a few days ago, saying that I expected to modify the post in the near future, adding a graphic, and more explanation. I have added the graphic, and re-worked the post, on February 26, 2014. Thanks for reading, and looking!

Prayer Born of Compassion, part 8

Jesus Christ was altogether man. While He was the Divine Son of God yet at the same time, He was the human Son of God. Christ had a pre-eminently human side, and, here, compassion reigned. He was tempted in all points as we are, yet without sin. At one time how the flesh seems to have weakened under the fearful strain upon Him, and how He must have inwardly shrunk under the pain and pull! Looking up to heaven, He prays, “Father, save me from this hour.” How the spirit nerves and holds—“but for this cause came I to this hour.” Only he can solve this mystery who has followed His Lord in straits and gloom and pain, and realised that the “spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.”

All this but fitted our Lord to be a compassionate Saviour. It is no sin to feel the pain and realise the darkness on the path into which God leads. It is only human to cry out against the pain, the terror, and desolation of that hour. It is Divine to cry out to God in that hour, even while shrinking and sinking down, “For this cause came I unto this hour.” Shall I fail through the weakness of the flesh? No. “Father, glorify thy name.” How strong it makes us, and how true, to have one pole star to guide us to the glory of God!

- From The Essentials of Prayer, by E. M. Bounds.

Although E. M. Bounds died in 1913, this book was first published in 1925, by an admirer of the author's life. Bounds was known for praying from four until seven each morning.

This post is one of a series, taken from The Essentials of Prayer, by Bounds. Found through the Christian Classics Ethereal Library, here. The Essentials of Prayer is in the public domain. The previous post in the entire series on the book is here. Thanks for reading. Read this book, and, more importantly, practice, prayer.

Prayer Born of Compassion, part 7

What a comfort and what hope there is to fill our breasts when we think of one in Heaven who ever liveth to intercede for us, because “His compassion fails not!” Above everything else, we have a compassionate Saviour, one “who can have compassion on the ignorant, and on them who are out of the way, for that he himself is compassed about with infirmity.” The compassion of our Lord well fits Him for being the Great High Priest of Adam’s fallen, lost and helpless race.

And if He is filled with such compassion that it moves Him at the Father’s right hand to intercede for us, then by every token we should have the same compassion on the ignorant and those out of the way, exposed to Divine wrath, as would move us to pray for them. Just in so far as we are compassionate will we be prayerful for others. Compassion does not expend its force in simply saying, “Be ye warmed; be ye clothed,” but drives us to our knees in prayer for those who need Christ and His grace.

- From The Essentials of Prayer, by E. M. Bounds.

Although E. M. Bounds died in 1913, this book was first published in 1925, by an admirer of the author's life. Bounds was known for praying from four until seven each morning.

This post is one of a series, taken from The Essentials of Prayer, by Bounds. Found through the Christian Classics Ethereal Library, here. The Essentials of Prayer is in the public domain. The previous post in the entire series on the book is here. Thanks for reading. Read this book, and, more importantly, practice, prayer.

Prayer Born of Compassion, part 6

The ingathering of the harvests of earth for the granaries of heaven is dependent on the prayers of God’s people. Prayer secures the labourers sufficient in quantity and in quality for all the needs of the harvest. God’s chosen labourers, God’s endowed labourers, and God’s thrust-forth labourers, are the only ones who will truly go, filled with Christly compassion and endued with Christly power, whose going will avail, and these are secured by prayer. Christ’s people on their knees with Christ’s compassion in their hearts for dying men and for needy souls, exposed to eternal peril, is the pledge of labourers in numbers and character to meet the wants of earth and the purposes of heaven.

God is sovereign of the earth and of heaven, and the choice of labourers in His harvest He delegates to no one else. Prayer honours Him as sovereign and moves Him to His wise and holy selection. We will have to put prayer to the front ere the fields of paganism will be successfully tilled for Christ. God knows His men, and He likewise knows full well His work. Prayer gets God to send forth the best men and the most fit men and the men best qualified to work in the harvest. Moving the missionary cause by forces this side of God has been its bane, its weakness and its failure. Compassion for the world of sinners, fallen in Adam, but redeemed in Christ will move the Church to pray for them and stir the Church to pray the Lord of the harvest to send forth labourers into the harvest.

- From The Essentials of Prayer, by E. M. Bounds.

Although E. M. Bounds died in 1913, this book was first published in 1925, by an admirer of the author's life. Bounds was known for praying from four until seven each morning.

This post is one of a series, taken from The Essentials of Prayer, by Bounds. Found through the Christian Classics Ethereal Library, here. The Essentials of Prayer is in the public domain. The previous post in the entire series on the book is here. Thanks for reading. Read this book, and, more importantly, practice, prayer. 

Prayer Born of Compassion, part 5

We have an interesting case in Matthew which gives us an account of what excited so largely the compassion of our Lord at one time:
“But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd. Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few. Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest.”

It seems from parallel statements that our Lord had called His disciples aside to rest awhile, exhausted as He and they were by the excessive drafts on them, by the ceaseless contact with the persons who were ever coming and going, and by their exhaustive toil in ministering to the immense multitudes. But the multitudes precede Him, and instead of finding wilderness-solitude, quiet and repose, He finds great multitudes eager to see and hear, and to be healed. His compassions are moved. The ripened harvests need labourers. He did not call these labourers at once, by sovereign authority, but charges the disciples to betake themselves to God in prayer, asking Him to send forth labourers into His harvest.

Here is the urgency of prayer enforced by the compassions of our Lord. It is prayer born of compassion for perishing humanity. Prayer is pressed on the Church for labourers to be sent into the harvest of the Lord. The harvest will go to waste and perish without the labourers, while the labourers must be God-chosen, God-sent, and God commissioned. But God does not send these labourers into His harvest without prayer. The failure of the labourers is owing to the failure of prayer. The scarcity of labourers in the harvest is due to the fact that the Church fails to pray for labourers according to His command.

- From The Essentials of Prayer, by E. M. Bounds.

Although E. M. Bounds died in 1913, this book was first published in 1925, by an admirer of the author's life. Bounds was known for praying from four until seven each morning.

This post is one of a series, taken from The Essentials of Prayer, by Bounds. Found through the Christian Classics Ethereal Library, here. The Essentials of Prayer is in the public domain. The previous post in the entire series on the book is here. Thanks for reading. Read this book, and, more importantly, practice, prayer.

Prayer Born of Compassion, part 4

Paul was wonderfully interested in the religious welfare of his Jewish brethren, was concerned over them, and his heart was strangely warmed with tender compassion for their salvation, even though mistreated and sorely persecuted by them. In writing to the Romans, we hear him thus express himself: 
“I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy
Ghost, that I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart; for I could wish that
myself were accursed for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh.”
 
What marvellous compassion is here described for Paul’s own nation! What wonder that a little later on he records his desire and prayer:
“Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved.”

- From The Essentials of Prayer, by E. M. Bounds.

Although E. M. Bounds died in 1913, this book was first published in 1925, by an admirer of the author's life. Bounds was known for praying from four until seven each morning.

This post is one of a series, taken from The Essentials of Prayer, by Bounds. Found through the Christian Classics Ethereal Library, here. The Essentials of Prayer is in the public domain. The previous post in the entire series on the book is here. Thanks for reading. Read this book, and, more importantly, practice, prayer.

Prayer Born of Compassion, part 3

But compassion has not alone to do with the body and its disabilities and needs. The soul’s distressing state, its needs and danger all appeal to compassion. The highest state of grace is known by the infallible mark of compassion for poor sinners. This sort of compassion belongs to grace, and sees not alone the bodies of men, but their immortal spirits, soiled by sin, unhappy in their condition without God, and in imminent peril of being forever lost. When compassion beholds this sight of dying men hurrying to the bar of God, then it is that it breaks out into intercessions for sinful men.

The Prophet Jeremiah declares this about God, giving the reason why sinners are not consumed by His wrath:
“It is of the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed, because his compassion fail not.”

And it is this Divine quality in us which makes us so much like God. So we find the Psalmist describing the righteous man who is pronounced blessed by God: “He is gracious and full of compassion, and righteous.” 

And as giving great encouragement to penitent praying sinners, the Psalmist thus records some of the striking attributes of the Divine character: “The Lord is gracious and full of compassion, slow to anger, and of great mercy.”

It is no wonder, then, that we find it recorded several times of our Lord while on earth that “he was moved with compassion.” Can any one doubt that His compassion moved Him to pray for those suffering, sorrowing ones who came across His pathway?

- From The Essentials of Prayer, by E. M. Bounds.

Although E. M. Bounds died in 1913, this book was first published in 1925, by an admirer of the author's life. Bounds was known for praying from four until seven each morning.

This post is one of a series, taken from The Essentials of Prayer, by Bounds. Found through the Christian Classics Ethereal Library, here. The Essentials of Prayer is in the public domain. The previous post in the entire series on the book is here. Thanks for reading. Read this book, and, more importantly, practice, prayer. 

Prayer Born of Compassion, part 2

Compassion is not blind. Rather we should say, that compassion is not born of blindness. He who has compassion of soul has eyes, first of all, to see the things which excite compassion. He who has no eyes to see the exceeding sinfulness of sin, the wants and woes of humanity, will never have compassion for humanity. It is written of our Lord that “when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them.” First, seeing the multitudes, with their hunger, their woes and their helpless condition, then compassion. Then prayer for the multitudes. Hard is he, and far from being Christlike, who sees the multitudes, and is unmoved at the sight of their sad state, their unhappiness and their peril. He has no heart of prayer for men.

Compassion may not always move men, but is always moved toward men. Compassion may not always turn men to God, but it will, and does, turn God to man. And where it is most helpless to relieve the needs of others, it can at least break out into prayer to God for others. Compassion is never indifferent, selfish, and forgetful of others. Compassion has alone to do with others. The fact that the multitudes were as sheep having no shepherd, was the one thing which appealed to our Lord’s compassionate nature. Then their hunger moved Him, and the sight of the sufferings and diseases of these multitudes stirred the pity of His heart.

- From The Essentials of Prayer, by E. M. Bounds.

Although E. M. Bounds died in 1913, this book was first published in 1925, by an admirer of the author's life. Bounds was known for praying from four until seven each morning.

This post is one of a series, taken from The Essentials of Prayer, by Bounds. Found through the Christian Classics Ethereal Library, here. The Essentials of Prayer is in the public domain. The previous post in the entire series on the book is here. Thanks for reading. Read this book, and, more importantly, practice, prayer.

Prayer Born of Compassion, part 1

We speak here more particularly of spiritual compassion, that which is born in a renewed heart, and which finds hospitality there. This compassion has in it the quality of mercy, is of the nature of pity, and moves the soul with tenderness of feeling for others. Compassion is moved at the sight of sin, sorrow and suffering. It stands at the other extreme to indifference of spirit to the wants and woes of others, and is far removed from insensibility and hardness of heart, in the midst of want and trouble and wretchedness. Compassion stands besides sympathy for others, is interested in them, and is concerned about them.

That which excites and develops compassion and puts it to work, is the sight of multitudes in want and distress, and helpless to relieve themselves. Helplessness especially appeals to compassion. Compassion is silent but does not remain secluded. It goes out at the sight of trouble, sin and need. Compassion runs out in earnest prayer, first of all, for those for whom it feels, and has a sympathy for them. Prayer for others is born of a sympathetic heart. Prayer is natural and almost spontaneous when compassion is begotten in the heart. Prayer belongs to the compassionate man.

There is a certain compassion which belongs to the natural man, which expends its force in simple gifts to those in need, not to be despised. But spiritual compassion, the kind born in a renewed heart, which is Christly in its nature, is deeper, broader and more prayerlike. Christly compassion always moves to prayer. This sort of compassion goes beyond the relief of mere bodily wants, and saying, “Be ye warmed—be ye clothed.” It reaches deeper down and goes much farther.

- From The Essentials of Prayer, by E. M. Bounds.

Although E. M. Bounds died in 1913, this book was first published in 1925, by an admirer of the author's life. Bounds was known for praying from four until seven each morning.

This post is one of a series, taken from The Essentials of Prayer, by Bounds. Found through the Christian Classics Ethereal Library, here. The Essentials of Prayer is in the public domain. The previous post in the entire series on the book is here. Thanks for reading. Read this book, and, more importantly, practice, prayer.