Examples of fervency in prayer-
'Fervency before God counts in the hour of prayer, and finds a speedy and rich reward at His hands. The Psalmist gives us this statement of what God had done for the king, as his heart turned toward his Lord;
"Thou hast given him his heart's desire, and hast not withholden the request of his lips."
At another time, he thus expresses himself directly to God in preferring his request:
"Lord, all my desire is before Thee; and my groaning is not hid from Thee."
What a cheering thought! Our inward groanings, our secret desires, our heart-longings, are not hidden from the eyes of Him with whom we have to deal in prayer.'
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Do we lay our hearts open to before God? Or are we trying to hide some part of us from Him? As we pray do we pray knowing we are heard by our Father in heaven who knows all that is in our hearts, from the very worst thought to the very worst intent of our heart, HE KNOWS. Is it any wonder we must cry out for a CLEAN HEART?
Psa_51:10 Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.
This must be our prayer! And it must be our prayer with great fervency! We must desire, we must long for desperately to be made clean, to have our God CREATE a CLEAN HEART inside of us! To RIGHT our SPIRIT within us! Left to ourselves we are lost completely, left to God we are trusting in Him to hear our groanings, to hear our fervent prayer, to hear us when we cry out to Him.
*******
'The incentive to fervency of spirit before God, is precisely the same as it is for continued and earnest prayer. While fervency is not prayer, yet it derives from an earnest soul, and is precious in the sight of God. Fervency in prayer is the precursor of what God will do by way of answer. God stands pledged to give us the desire of our hearts in proportion to the fervency of spirit we exhibit, when seeking His face in prayer.
Fervency has its seat in the heart, not in the brain, nor in the intellectual faculties of the mind.
Fervency therefore, is not an expression of the intellect. Fervency of spirit is something far transcending poetical fancy or sentimental imagery. It is something else besides mere preference, the contrasting of like with dislike. Fervency is the throb and gesture of the emotional nature.'
*******
This is truth, isn't it? Fervency is truly our desperation revealed, it is emotional. We cannot divorce emotions from our prayers, if we even tried to do that they would become wooden, stilted, and lifeless. If we pray by rote, if we pray simply because someone says- bow your head and pray, if we pray because we appointed a time for prayer and that time comes around, yet we do so without any emotion, without any sense of urgency, of heart felt need, then we pray in vain. We cannot do this--
Mar 12:38 And he said unto them in his doctrine, Beware of the scribes, which love to go in long clothing, and love salutations in the marketplaces,
Mar 12:39 And the chief seats in the synagogues, and the uppermost rooms at feasts:
Mar 12:40 Which devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayers: these shall receive greater damnation.
BEWARE of those who 'For a PRETENCE make LONG PRAYERS'.
We cannot use pretence in prayers whether it's in making them long, or using eloquent words, we should never pray for show, but pray from the heart each and every time we pray!
*******
'It is not in our power, perhaps, to create fervency of spirit at will, but we can pray God to implant it.
It is ours, then, to nourish and cherish it, to guard it against extinction, to prevent its abatement or decline.'
*******
We MUST pray for God to give us ALL we need, and that ALL includes the fervency we need to have for Him. Just as we know our hearts are not clean unless HE cleans them, we know our prayers are not true prayers without His blessing us. Without the Holy Spirit to bring our prayers before God so that the heart of them is revealed, the desire of them is know, we have little hope. We cannot pray perfect prayers, we can pray prayers desperate to be heard by our Father in Heaven, He and He alone along with His Son and the Holy Spirit, can hear the HEART of our prayers when our words fail to speak as we would have ourselves speak.
*******
'The process of personal salvation is not only to pray, to express our desires to God, but to acquire a fervent spirit and seek, by all proper means, to cultivate it. It is never out of place to pray God to beget within us, and to keep alive the spirit of fervent prayer.
Fervency has to do with God, just as prayer has to do with Him. Desire has always an objective. If we desire at all, we desire something. The degree of fervency with which we fashion our spiritual desires, will always serve to determine the earnestness of our praying. In this relation, Adoniram Judson says:
"A travailing spirit, the throes of a great burdened desire, belongs to prayer. A fervency strong enough to drive away sleep, which devotes and inflames the spirit, and which retires all earthly ties, all this belongs to wrestling, prevailing prayer. The Spirit, the power, the air, and food of prayer is in such a spirit."
Prayer must be clothed with fervency, strength and power. It is the force which, centered on God, determines the outlay of Himself for earthly good. Men who are fervent in spirit are bent on attaining to righteousness, truth, grace, and all other sublime and powerful graces which adorn the character of the authentic, unquestioned child of God.'
*******
Every prayer we pray with the comprehension we are crying out to our Creator, our Redeemer, our Sustainer for whom we are dependent upon for ALL things, must be a prayer that comprehends we are nothing and He is all things, and if we do become something at all it is at HIS command, it is at HIS will we exist. Truly HE is our GOD, the GOD of our LIVES, our WHOLE, ENTIRE LIVES!
*******
Quoted from- 'THE NECESSITY OF PRAYER By E.M. BOUNDS' (Excerpt 23) Expounded *******
'Fervency before God counts in the hour of prayer, and finds a speedy and rich reward at His hands. The Psalmist gives us this statement of what God had done for the king, as his heart turned toward his Lord;
"Thou hast given him his heart's desire, and hast not withholden the request of his lips."
At another time, he thus expresses himself directly to God in preferring his request:
"Lord, all my desire is before Thee; and my groaning is not hid from Thee."
What a cheering thought! Our inward groanings, our secret desires, our heart-longings, are not hidden from the eyes of Him with whom we have to deal in prayer.'
*******
Do we lay our hearts open to before God? Or are we trying to hide some part of us from Him? As we pray do we pray knowing we are heard by our Father in heaven who knows all that is in our hearts, from the very worst thought to the very worst intent of our heart, HE KNOWS. Is it any wonder we must cry out for a CLEAN HEART?
Psa_51:10 Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.
This must be our prayer! And it must be our prayer with great fervency! We must desire, we must long for desperately to be made clean, to have our God CREATE a CLEAN HEART inside of us! To RIGHT our SPIRIT within us! Left to ourselves we are lost completely, left to God we are trusting in Him to hear our groanings, to hear our fervent prayer, to hear us when we cry out to Him.
*******
'The incentive to fervency of spirit before God, is precisely the same as it is for continued and earnest prayer. While fervency is not prayer, yet it derives from an earnest soul, and is precious in the sight of God. Fervency in prayer is the precursor of what God will do by way of answer. God stands pledged to give us the desire of our hearts in proportion to the fervency of spirit we exhibit, when seeking His face in prayer.
Fervency has its seat in the heart, not in the brain, nor in the intellectual faculties of the mind.
Fervency therefore, is not an expression of the intellect. Fervency of spirit is something far transcending poetical fancy or sentimental imagery. It is something else besides mere preference, the contrasting of like with dislike. Fervency is the throb and gesture of the emotional nature.'
*******
This is truth, isn't it? Fervency is truly our desperation revealed, it is emotional. We cannot divorce emotions from our prayers, if we even tried to do that they would become wooden, stilted, and lifeless. If we pray by rote, if we pray simply because someone says- bow your head and pray, if we pray because we appointed a time for prayer and that time comes around, yet we do so without any emotion, without any sense of urgency, of heart felt need, then we pray in vain. We cannot do this--
Mar 12:38 And he said unto them in his doctrine, Beware of the scribes, which love to go in long clothing, and love salutations in the marketplaces,
Mar 12:39 And the chief seats in the synagogues, and the uppermost rooms at feasts:
Mar 12:40 Which devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayers: these shall receive greater damnation.
BEWARE of those who 'For a PRETENCE make LONG PRAYERS'.
We cannot use pretence in prayers whether it's in making them long, or using eloquent words, we should never pray for show, but pray from the heart each and every time we pray!
*******
'It is not in our power, perhaps, to create fervency of spirit at will, but we can pray God to implant it.
It is ours, then, to nourish and cherish it, to guard it against extinction, to prevent its abatement or decline.'
*******
We MUST pray for God to give us ALL we need, and that ALL includes the fervency we need to have for Him. Just as we know our hearts are not clean unless HE cleans them, we know our prayers are not true prayers without His blessing us. Without the Holy Spirit to bring our prayers before God so that the heart of them is revealed, the desire of them is know, we have little hope. We cannot pray perfect prayers, we can pray prayers desperate to be heard by our Father in Heaven, He and He alone along with His Son and the Holy Spirit, can hear the HEART of our prayers when our words fail to speak as we would have ourselves speak.
*******
'The process of personal salvation is not only to pray, to express our desires to God, but to acquire a fervent spirit and seek, by all proper means, to cultivate it. It is never out of place to pray God to beget within us, and to keep alive the spirit of fervent prayer.
Fervency has to do with God, just as prayer has to do with Him. Desire has always an objective. If we desire at all, we desire something. The degree of fervency with which we fashion our spiritual desires, will always serve to determine the earnestness of our praying. In this relation, Adoniram Judson says:
"A travailing spirit, the throes of a great burdened desire, belongs to prayer. A fervency strong enough to drive away sleep, which devotes and inflames the spirit, and which retires all earthly ties, all this belongs to wrestling, prevailing prayer. The Spirit, the power, the air, and food of prayer is in such a spirit."
Prayer must be clothed with fervency, strength and power. It is the force which, centered on God, determines the outlay of Himself for earthly good. Men who are fervent in spirit are bent on attaining to righteousness, truth, grace, and all other sublime and powerful graces which adorn the character of the authentic, unquestioned child of God.'
*******
Every prayer we pray with the comprehension we are crying out to our Creator, our Redeemer, our Sustainer for whom we are dependent upon for ALL things, must be a prayer that comprehends we are nothing and He is all things, and if we do become something at all it is at HIS command, it is at HIS will we exist. Truly HE is our GOD, the GOD of our LIVES, our WHOLE, ENTIRE LIVES!
*******
Quoted from- 'THE NECESSITY OF PRAYER By E.M. BOUNDS' (Excerpt 23) Expounded *******
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