WITH CHRIST
IN THE SCHOOL OF PRAYER
BY REV. ANDREW MURRAY
FOURTEENTH LESSON
'When ye stand praying, forgive;'
Or, Prayer and Love.
'And whensoever ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have aught against any
one; that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your
trespasses.'--MARK xi. 25.
THESE words follow immediately on the great prayer-promise, 'All things
whatsoever ye pray, believe that ye have received them, and ye shall have
them.' We have already seen how the words that preceded that promise,
'Have faith in God,' taught us that in prayer all depends upon our relation
to God being clear; these words that follow on it remind us that our
relation with fellow-men must be clear too. Love to God and love to our
neighbour are inseparable: the prayer from a heart, that is either not
right with God on the one side, or with men on the other, cannot prevail.
Faith and love are essential to each other.
We find that this is a thought to which our Lord frequently gave
expression. In the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. v. 23, 24), when speaking of
the sixth commandment, He taught His disciples how impossible acceptable
worship to the Father was if everything were not right with the brother:
'If thou art offering thy gift at the altar, and there rememberest that thy
brother hath aught against thee, leave there thy gift before the altar, and
go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy
gift.' And so later, when speaking of prayer to God, after having taught
us to pray, 'Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors,'
He added at the close of the prayer: 'If you forgive not men their
trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.' At the
close of the parable of the unmerciful servant He applies His teaching in
the words: 'So shall also my Heavenly Father do unto you, if ye forgive
not every one his brother from your hearts.' And so here, beside the
dried-up fig-tree, where He speaks of the wonderful power of faith and the
prayer of faith, He all at once, apparently without connection, introduces
the thought, 'Whensoever ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have aught
against any one; that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you
your trespasses.' It is as if the Lord had learned during His life at
Nazareth and afterwards that disobedience to the law of love to men was the
great sin even of praying people, and the great cause of the feebleness of
their prayer. And it is as if He wanted to lead us into His own blessed
experience that nothing gives such liberty of access and such power in
believing as the consciousness that we have given ourselves in love and
compassion, for those whom God loves.
The first lesson taught here is that of a forgiving disposition. We pray,
'Forgive, even as we have forgiven.' Scripture says, 'Forgive one another,
even as God also in Christ forgave you.' God's full and free forgiveness
is to be the rule of ours with men. Otherwise our reluctant, half-hearted
forgiveness, which is not forgiveness at all, will be God's rule with us.
Every prayer rests upon our faith in God's pardoning grace. If God dealt
with us after our sins, not one prayer could be heard. Pardon opens the
door to all God's love and blessing: because God has pardoned all our sin,
our prayer can prevail to obtain all we need. The deep sure ground of
answer to prayer is God's forgiving love. When it has taken possession of
the heart, we pray in faith. But also, when it has taken possession of the
heart, we live in love. God's forgiving disposition, revealed in His love
to us, becomes a disposition in us; as the power of His forgiving love shed
abroad and dwelling within us, we forgive even as He forgives. If there be
great and grievous injury or injustice done us, we seek first of all to
possess a Godlike disposition; to be kept from a sense of wounded honour,
from a desire to maintain our rights, or from rewarding the offender as he
has deserved. In the little annoyances of daily life, we are watchful not
to excuse the hasty temper, the sharp word, the quick judgment, with the
thought that we mean no harm, that we do not keep the anger long, or that
it would be too much to expect from feeble human nature, that we should
really forgive the way God and Christ do. No, we take the command
literally, 'Even as Christ forgave, so also do ye.' The blood that
cleanses the conscience from dead works, cleanses from selfishness too; the
love it reveals is pardoning love, that takes possession of us and flows
through us to others. Our forgiving love to men is the evidence of the
reality of God's forgiving love in us, and so the condition of the prayer
of faith.
There is a second, more general lesson: our daily life in the world is
made the test of our intercourse with God in prayer. How often the
Christian, when he comes to pray, does his utmost to cultivate certain
frames of mind which he thinks will be pleasing. He does not understand,
or forgets, that life does not consist of so many loose pieces, of which
now the one, then the other, can be taken up. Life is a whole, and the
pious frame of the hour of prayer is judged of by God from the ordinary
frame of the daily life of which the hour of prayer is but a small part.
Not the feeling I call up, but the tone of my life during the day, is God's
criterion of what I really am and desire. My drawing nigh to God is of one
piece with my intercourse with men and earth: failure here will cause
failure there. And that not only when there is the distinct consciousness
of anything wrong between my neighbour and myself; but the ordinary current
of my thinking and judging, the unloving thoughts and words I allow to pass
unnoticed, can hinder my prayer. The effectual prayer of faith comes out
from a life given up to the will and the love of God. Not according to
what I try to be when praying, but what I am when not praying, is my prayer
dealt with by God.
We may gather these thoughts into a third lesson: In our life with men the
one thing on which everything depends is love. The spirit of forgiveness
is the spirit of love. Because God is love, He forgives: it is only when
we are dwelling in love that we can forgive as God forgives. In love to
the brethren we have the evidence of love to the Father, the ground of
confidence before God, and the assurance that our prayer will be heard, (1
John iv. 20, iii. 18-21, 23.). 'Let us love in deed and truth; hereby
shall we assure our heart before Him. If our heart condemn us not, we have
boldness toward God, and whatever we ask, we receive of Him.' Neither
faith nor work will profit if we have not love; it is love that unites with
God, it is love that proves the reality of faith. As essential as in the
word that precedes the great prayer-promise in Mark xi. 24, 'Have faith in
God,' is this one that follows it, 'Have love to men.' The right relations
to the living God above me, and the living men around me, are the
conditions of effectual prayer.
This love is of special consequence when we labour for such and pray for
them. We sometimes give ourselves to work for Christ, from zeal for His
cause, as we call it, or for our own spiritual health, without giving
ourselves in personal self-sacrificing love for those whose souls we seek.
No wonder that our faith is feeble and does not conquer. To look on each
wretched one, however unloveable he be, in the light of the tender love of
Jesus the Shepherd seeking the lost; to see Jesus Christ in him, and to
take him up, for Jesus' sake, in a heart that really loves, --this, this is
the secret of believing prayer and successful effort. Jesus, in speaking
of forgiveness, speaks of love as its root. Just as in the Sermon on the
Mount He connected His teaching and promises about prayer with the call to
be merciful, as the Father in heaven is merciful (Matt. v. 7, 9, 22,
38-48), so we see it here: a loving life is the condition of believing
prayer.
It has been said: There is nothing so heart-searching as believing prayer,
or even the honest effort to pray in faith. O let us not turn the edge of
that self-examination by the thought that God does not hear our prayer for
reasons known to Himself alone. By no means. 'Ye ask and receive not,
because ye ask amiss.' Let that word of God search us. Let us ask whether
our prayer be indeed the expression of a life wholly given over to the will
of God and the love of man. Love is the only soil in which faith can
strike its roots and thrive. As it throws its arms up, and opens its heart
heavenward, the Father always looks to see if it has them opened towards
the evil and the unworthy too. In that love, not indeed the love of
perfect attainment, but the love of fixed purpose and sincere obedience,
faith can alone obtain the blessing. It is he who gives himself to let the
love of God dwell in him, and in the practice of daily life to love as God
loves, who will have the power to believe in the Love that hears his every
prayer. It is the Lamb, who is in the midst of the throne: it is
suffering and forbearing love that prevails with God in prayer. The
merciful shall obtain mercy; the meek shall inherit the earth.
'LORD, TEACH US TO PRAY.'
-----0-----
Blessed Father! Thou art Love, and only he that abideth in love abideth in
Thee and in fellowship with Thee. The Blessed Son hath this day again
taught me how deeply true this is of my fellowship with Thee in prayer. O
my God! let Thy love, shed abroad in my heart by the Holy Spirit, be in me
a fountain of love to all around me, that out of a life in love may spring
the power of believing prayer. O my Father! grant by the Holy Spirit that
this may be my experience, that a life in love to all around me is the gate
to a life in the love of my God. And give me especially to find in the joy
with which I forgive day by day whoever might offend me, the proof that Thy
forgiveness to me is a power and a life.
Lord Jesus! my Blessed Teacher! teach Thou me to forgive and to love. Let
the power of Thy blood make the pardon of my sins such a reality, that
forgiveness, as shown by Thee to me, and by me to others, may be the very
joy of heaven. Show me whatever in my intercourse with fellowmen might
hinder my fellowship with God, so that my daily life in my own home and in
society may be the school in which strength and confidence are gathered for
the prayer of faith. Amen.
'When ye stand praying, forgive;'
Or, Prayer and Love.
'And whensoever ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have aught against any
one; that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your
trespasses.'--MARK xi. 25.
THESE words follow immediately on the great prayer-promise, 'All things
whatsoever ye pray, believe that ye have received them, and ye shall have
them.' We have already seen how the words that preceded that promise,
'Have faith in God,' taught us that in prayer all depends upon our relation
to God being clear; these words that follow on it remind us that our
relation with fellow-men must be clear too. Love to God and love to our
neighbour are inseparable: the prayer from a heart, that is either not
right with God on the one side, or with men on the other, cannot prevail.
Faith and love are essential to each other.
We find that this is a thought to which our Lord frequently gave
expression. In the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. v. 23, 24), when speaking of
the sixth commandment, He taught His disciples how impossible acceptable
worship to the Father was if everything were not right with the brother:
'If thou art offering thy gift at the altar, and there rememberest that thy
brother hath aught against thee, leave there thy gift before the altar, and
go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy
gift.' And so later, when speaking of prayer to God, after having taught
us to pray, 'Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors,'
He added at the close of the prayer: 'If you forgive not men their
trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.' At the
close of the parable of the unmerciful servant He applies His teaching in
the words: 'So shall also my Heavenly Father do unto you, if ye forgive
not every one his brother from your hearts.' And so here, beside the
dried-up fig-tree, where He speaks of the wonderful power of faith and the
prayer of faith, He all at once, apparently without connection, introduces
the thought, 'Whensoever ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have aught
against any one; that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you
your trespasses.' It is as if the Lord had learned during His life at
Nazareth and afterwards that disobedience to the law of love to men was the
great sin even of praying people, and the great cause of the feebleness of
their prayer. And it is as if He wanted to lead us into His own blessed
experience that nothing gives such liberty of access and such power in
believing as the consciousness that we have given ourselves in love and
compassion, for those whom God loves.
The first lesson taught here is that of a forgiving disposition. We pray,
'Forgive, even as we have forgiven.' Scripture says, 'Forgive one another,
even as God also in Christ forgave you.' God's full and free forgiveness
is to be the rule of ours with men. Otherwise our reluctant, half-hearted
forgiveness, which is not forgiveness at all, will be God's rule with us.
Every prayer rests upon our faith in God's pardoning grace. If God dealt
with us after our sins, not one prayer could be heard. Pardon opens the
door to all God's love and blessing: because God has pardoned all our sin,
our prayer can prevail to obtain all we need. The deep sure ground of
answer to prayer is God's forgiving love. When it has taken possession of
the heart, we pray in faith. But also, when it has taken possession of the
heart, we live in love. God's forgiving disposition, revealed in His love
to us, becomes a disposition in us; as the power of His forgiving love shed
abroad and dwelling within us, we forgive even as He forgives. If there be
great and grievous injury or injustice done us, we seek first of all to
possess a Godlike disposition; to be kept from a sense of wounded honour,
from a desire to maintain our rights, or from rewarding the offender as he
has deserved. In the little annoyances of daily life, we are watchful not
to excuse the hasty temper, the sharp word, the quick judgment, with the
thought that we mean no harm, that we do not keep the anger long, or that
it would be too much to expect from feeble human nature, that we should
really forgive the way God and Christ do. No, we take the command
literally, 'Even as Christ forgave, so also do ye.' The blood that
cleanses the conscience from dead works, cleanses from selfishness too; the
love it reveals is pardoning love, that takes possession of us and flows
through us to others. Our forgiving love to men is the evidence of the
reality of God's forgiving love in us, and so the condition of the prayer
of faith.
There is a second, more general lesson: our daily life in the world is
made the test of our intercourse with God in prayer. How often the
Christian, when he comes to pray, does his utmost to cultivate certain
frames of mind which he thinks will be pleasing. He does not understand,
or forgets, that life does not consist of so many loose pieces, of which
now the one, then the other, can be taken up. Life is a whole, and the
pious frame of the hour of prayer is judged of by God from the ordinary
frame of the daily life of which the hour of prayer is but a small part.
Not the feeling I call up, but the tone of my life during the day, is God's
criterion of what I really am and desire. My drawing nigh to God is of one
piece with my intercourse with men and earth: failure here will cause
failure there. And that not only when there is the distinct consciousness
of anything wrong between my neighbour and myself; but the ordinary current
of my thinking and judging, the unloving thoughts and words I allow to pass
unnoticed, can hinder my prayer. The effectual prayer of faith comes out
from a life given up to the will and the love of God. Not according to
what I try to be when praying, but what I am when not praying, is my prayer
dealt with by God.
We may gather these thoughts into a third lesson: In our life with men the
one thing on which everything depends is love. The spirit of forgiveness
is the spirit of love. Because God is love, He forgives: it is only when
we are dwelling in love that we can forgive as God forgives. In love to
the brethren we have the evidence of love to the Father, the ground of
confidence before God, and the assurance that our prayer will be heard, (1
John iv. 20, iii. 18-21, 23.). 'Let us love in deed and truth; hereby
shall we assure our heart before Him. If our heart condemn us not, we have
boldness toward God, and whatever we ask, we receive of Him.' Neither
faith nor work will profit if we have not love; it is love that unites with
God, it is love that proves the reality of faith. As essential as in the
word that precedes the great prayer-promise in Mark xi. 24, 'Have faith in
God,' is this one that follows it, 'Have love to men.' The right relations
to the living God above me, and the living men around me, are the
conditions of effectual prayer.
This love is of special consequence when we labour for such and pray for
them. We sometimes give ourselves to work for Christ, from zeal for His
cause, as we call it, or for our own spiritual health, without giving
ourselves in personal self-sacrificing love for those whose souls we seek.
No wonder that our faith is feeble and does not conquer. To look on each
wretched one, however unloveable he be, in the light of the tender love of
Jesus the Shepherd seeking the lost; to see Jesus Christ in him, and to
take him up, for Jesus' sake, in a heart that really loves, --this, this is
the secret of believing prayer and successful effort. Jesus, in speaking
of forgiveness, speaks of love as its root. Just as in the Sermon on the
Mount He connected His teaching and promises about prayer with the call to
be merciful, as the Father in heaven is merciful (Matt. v. 7, 9, 22,
38-48), so we see it here: a loving life is the condition of believing
prayer.
It has been said: There is nothing so heart-searching as believing prayer,
or even the honest effort to pray in faith. O let us not turn the edge of
that self-examination by the thought that God does not hear our prayer for
reasons known to Himself alone. By no means. 'Ye ask and receive not,
because ye ask amiss.' Let that word of God search us. Let us ask whether
our prayer be indeed the expression of a life wholly given over to the will
of God and the love of man. Love is the only soil in which faith can
strike its roots and thrive. As it throws its arms up, and opens its heart
heavenward, the Father always looks to see if it has them opened towards
the evil and the unworthy too. In that love, not indeed the love of
perfect attainment, but the love of fixed purpose and sincere obedience,
faith can alone obtain the blessing. It is he who gives himself to let the
love of God dwell in him, and in the practice of daily life to love as God
loves, who will have the power to believe in the Love that hears his every
prayer. It is the Lamb, who is in the midst of the throne: it is
suffering and forbearing love that prevails with God in prayer. The
merciful shall obtain mercy; the meek shall inherit the earth.
'LORD, TEACH US TO PRAY.'
Blessed Father! Thou art Love, and only he that abideth in love abideth in
Thee and in fellowship with Thee. The Blessed Son hath this day again
taught me how deeply true this is of my fellowship with Thee in prayer. O
my God! let Thy love, shed abroad in my heart by the Holy Spirit, be in me
a fountain of love to all around me, that out of a life in love may spring
the power of believing prayer. O my Father! grant by the Holy Spirit that
this may be my experience, that a life in love to all around me is the gate
to a life in the love of my God. And give me especially to find in the joy
with which I forgive day by day whoever might offend me, the proof that Thy
forgiveness to me is a power and a life.
Lord Jesus! my Blessed Teacher! teach Thou me to forgive and to love. Let
the power of Thy blood make the pardon of my sins such a reality, that
forgiveness, as shown by Thee to me, and by me to others, may be the very
joy of heaven. Show me whatever in my intercourse with fellowmen might
hinder my fellowship with God, so that my daily life in my own home and in
society may be the school in which strength and confidence are gathered for
the prayer of faith. Amen.
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