The Secret Of Strength To Every Christian

Faithful, sincere, believing prayer is the secret of strength to every Christian.

It is the channel by which he receives daily help, wisdom, grace, and consolation from above.

A worldly spirit must be avoided if prayer is to be true and effectual.

If the harp is out of tune, if the strings are loose or broken then how can it give forth a delightful strain of pleasant melody?

Just so, if you come to the throne of grace with a mind preoccupied with a thousand eager, feverish worldly desires then how can you offer such hearty spiritual worship as will be music in the ear of our Father in Heaven?

If you would pray and praise aright then watch continually that you are not conformed to the world.

If worldly thoughts are allowed to lodge in the heart if you set up an idol of money or pleasure or human praise or anything else, in the sanctuary which belongs to God - if you indulge yourself in that which is your own besetting snare...be sure that you will lose all comfort in prayer.

Either prayer will conquer sin or sin will take away all power in prayer.

Mere lip-service in prayer is another deadly foe to effectual prayer. It is the shell without the kernel. It is the husk without the wheat. It is the body without the soul. It is the form without the power or reality.
 

You may repeat the most beautiful words by rote, you may utter the Lord's Prayer hundreds of times over but if there is no earnest desire for the things you ask, then what does it profit you?

God looks at the heart, and He sees the emptiness and worthlessness of all such seeming devotion.

Beware of it as one of the greatest perils.

It is in vain that you worship God and draw near to Him with your lips while your heart is far from Him. He will never accept it at your hands. "In Spirit and in truth" is the one great requisite.

A sigh, a groan, a look, an inward longing of the soul has in it more of real, true prayer, than any number of words merely repeated from the memory, or read from a book, without the deep feeling of an humble, believing heart.

Hebrews 4:16  Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.

~George Everard-1880~