A Quote by Oswald Chambers
Too often we treat prayer as the preparation for the work of the church. Do you not see? Prayer IS the work of the church.
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Every true prayer is a prayer of the Church; by means of that prayer the Church prays, since it is the Holy Spirit living in the Church, Who in every single soul 'prays in us with unspeakable groanings'.
Prayer is not a preparation for work, it IS work. Prayer is not a preparation for the battle, it IS the battle. Prayer is two-fold: definite asking and definite waiting to receive.
We think of prayer as a preparation for work, or a calm after having done work, whereas prayer is the essential work.
We will only advance in our evangelistic work as fast and as far as we advance on our knees. Prayer opens the channel between a soul and God; prayerlessness closes it. Prayer releases the grip of Satan's power; prayerlessness increases it. That is why prayer is so exhausting and so vital. If we believed it, the prayer meeting would be as full as the church.
The condition of the church may be very accurately gauged by its prayer meetings. So is the prayer meeting a grace-ometer, and from it we may judge of the amount of divine working among a people. If God be near a church, it must pray. And if He be not there, one of the first tokens of His absence will be slothfulness in prayer.
Don't tell me that you have a Reformed Church in the tradition of Calvin until you have the preaching of the Word every day of the week, devote Wednesday's to prayer and have the church gather together for prayer.
When a church is truly convinced that prayer is where the action is, that church will so construct its corporate activities that the prayer program will have the highest priority.
If you don't pray often, you won't gain a love for praying. Prayer is work, and therefore it is not very appealing to our natural sensibilities. But the simple rule for prayer is this: Begin praying and your taste for prayer will increase. The more you pray, the more you will acquire the desire for prayer, the energy for prayer, and the sense of purpose in prayer.
The Prophet introduced a system of prayer in that it was interwoven into man's daily work: a prayer in the morning when he arose from his bed; a prayer at lunch time, as an indication that if his body needed a diet, so did his spirit; a prayer in the afternoon when he retired from his daily work; a prayer at sunset and a prayer when going to bed.
Publicly leading a church in prayer deserves thoughtful preparation.
The true man of God is heartsick, grieved at the worldliness of the Church, grieved at the toleration of sin in the Church, grieved at the prayerlessness in the Church. He is disturbed that the corporate prayer of the Church no longer pulls down the strongholds of the devil.
The evil of the Church is the doing of Church work in a spirit of business, something to be got through. The only way to avoid this is for the priest to be instant in prayer. If he is not, he will lose that touch of the supernatural, without which he has no right to be a priest at all.
There is power through prayer. For many Christians, prayer is nothing special, just something we're supposed to do - go to church, tithe, read the Bible, pray. But prayer should be so much more than an item on our "to do" lists.
We know the Church wasn't born 200 years ago. It's encouraging to see some of the post-denominational churches actually wanting to reconnect with the story and the prayer life of the larger Church.
We have not been men of prayer. The spirit of prayer has slumbered among us. The closet has been too little frequented and delighted in. We have allowed business, study or active labor to interfere with our closet-hours. And the feverish atmosphere in which both the church and the nation are enveloped has found its way into our prayer closets.
Prayer worth calling prayer, prayer that God will call true prayer and will treat as true prayer, takes for more time by the clock than one man in a thousand thinks.
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