Laboring Fervently in Prayer

'In Romans 15:30, we have the word, "strive," occurring, in the request which Paul made
for prayerful cooperation.

Rom 15:30  Now I beseech you, brethren, for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake, and for the love of the Spirit, that ye strive together with me in your prayers to God for me

In Colossians 4:12, we have the same word, but translated differently: "Epaphras always
labouring fervently for you in prayer."

 Paul charged the Romans to "strive together with him in prayer," that is, to help him in his struggle of prayer. The word means to enter into a contest, to fight against adversaries. It means, moreover, to engage with fervent zeal to endeavour to obtain.'

Quoted from- 'THE NECESSITY OF PRAYER  By E.M. BOUNDS' (Excerpt 26)

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Do we realize that prayer is not easy?  Contrary to all that we want to believe, if prayer has the Holy Spirit interceding for us with GROANINGS which can't even be heard, how can we believe prayer is simple and easy?  

Rom_8:26  Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.

We are told how to pray by our Savior, when the apostles asked Him He told them …

Luk 11:1  And it came to pass, that, as he was praying in a certain place, when he ceased, one of his disciples said unto him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.
Luk 11:2  And he said unto them, When ye pray, say, Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth.
Luk 11:3  Give us day by day our daily bread.
Luk 11:4  And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil.

Mat 6:9  After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.
Mat 6:10  Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.
Mat 6:11  Give us this day our daily bread.
Mat 6:12  And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
Mat 6:13  And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.

And even after TEACHING the disciples to pray we read that 'we know NOT what we SHOULD pray for as we ought' .  We are told what to pray but still we don't pray as we should because our prayers are corrupted by our flesh, by our sinfulness, our selfishness.  We are instructed and we may follow the instructions but truthfully we  ask so much more in prayer- we tend to ask for our own desires, our own wills to be done, we get in the way of our own true needs but the Holy Spirit intercedes for us by the GRACE of our LORD and SAVIOR.

The fervency needed in prayer is also given to us by the Holy Spirit, because we cannot manufacture it on our own.

Laboring fervently, striving in prayer- prayer is NOT something meaningless, but something so overwhelmingly filled with meaning that we can't comprehend the full truth of it, we can only PRAISE and THANK our God for allowing us to Pray to HIM.

All through HIS GRACE!

How Do We Pray? Holy Spirit Make Intercession For Us!

'Many of the great Bible characters were notable examples of fervency of spirit when
seeking God.

The Psalmist declares with great earnestness:

"My soul breaketh for the longing that it hath unto Thy judgments at all times."

What strong desires of heart are here! What earnest soul longings for the Word of the
living God!

An even greater fervency is expressed by him in another place:

"As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after Thee, O God.
My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before
God?"

That is the word of a man who lived in a state of grace, which had been deeply and
supernaturally wrought in his soul.

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.

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.'

Quoted from- 'THE NECESSITY OF PRAYER  By E.M. BOUNDS' (Excerpt 25)


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Fervency in prayer-

Mat_27:46  And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

Crying out in a loud voice- FERVENCY.

Rom 7:24  O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
Rom 7:25  I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.

FERVENCY.

Joh 17:1  These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee:
Joh 17:2  As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him.
Joh 17:3  And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.
Joh 17:4  I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.
Joh 17:5  And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.
Joh 17:6  I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word.
Joh 17:7  Now they have known that all things whatsoever thou hast given me are of thee.
Joh 17:8  For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me.
Joh 17:9  I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine.
Joh 17:10  And all mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am glorified in them.
Joh 17:11  And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are.
Joh 17:12  While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled.
Joh 17:13  And now come I to thee; and these things I speak in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves.
Joh 17:14  I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.
Joh 17:15  I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.
Joh 17:16  They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.
Joh 17:17  Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.
Joh 17:18  As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world.
Joh 17:19  And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.
Joh 17:20  Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word;
Joh 17:21  That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.
Joh 17:22  And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one:
Joh 17:23  I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.
Joh 17:24  Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.
Joh 17:25  O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee: but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me.
Joh 17:26  And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.

FERVENCY.

How do we pray?

Father! Father!

Rom_8:26  Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.

By YOUR GRACE!

Heaven Connected

'Our Lord warns us against feeble praying. "Men ought always to pray," He declares, "and not to faint." That means, that we are to possess sufficient fervency to carry us through the severe and long periods of pleading prayer. Fire makes one alert and vigilant, and brings him off, more than conqueror. The atmosphere about us is too heavily charged with resisting forces for limp or languid prayers to make headway. It takes heat, and fervency and meteoric fire, to push through, to the upper heavens, where God dwells with His saints, in light.'

Quoted from- 'THE NECESSITY OF PRAYER  By E.M. BOUNDS' (Excerpt 24)

Luk_18:1  ... that men ought always to pray, and not to faint

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It is true- 'The atmosphere about us is too heavily charged with resisting forces for limp or languid prayers…'

All around us we are surrounded by things that would keep us as far from our God as possible.  At every turn we are confronted by spiritual wickedness striving to get us to focus on life around us, and not on life to come. If we 'pray always' then we are in a constant state of comprehension that we are in touch with the HEAVENLY, not the earthly. We truly need to be in touch with the HEAVENLY, don't we?

When we are in love don't we have a constant thought about the one we love?  Aren't there things all through our day that remind us of our loved one? The back of our mind is filled with the knowledge of our loved one, and all we do has us bringing our thoughts back around again to them.  Our constant state of prayer is a constant connection with our loving Heavenly Father. Every failing we find ourselves sadly immersed in is a call for us to remember our connection with heaven, in fact it's a cry for us to not only remember but to renew that connection- that constant connection.

Surely we cannot always be in prayer upon our knees, eyes closed, head bowed- but we need to always be in a constant mental state of prayer- in the awareness of heaven as our home, not here, not now. The things of this world WILL overwhelm us without this constant connection.

Fainting is so easy without our heavenly Father.  Fainting spiritually, letting down our spiritual guard, when this happens we leave ourselves incredibly vulnerable.

Our Savior did NOT admonish us to pray always  so we don't faint, without a good reason!

We have to be HEAVEN CONNECTED!

By the grace of God!

Is Your Name In the Book of Life?

Is Your Name Written in Heaven's Book of Remembrance? Is Your Name in the Book of Life?

Moses spoke of a book that God has written, asking to be blotted out of that book if God did not forgive the erring Israelites.

Exo_32:32  Yet now, if thou wilt forgive their sin--; and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written.

Moses wanted the people forgiven. Imagine you were Moses- you grow up pampered and spoiled and then realize that your family isn't your family at all. You then realize that your true family, your birth family are slaves to the family that raised you. Deciding that you'd rather be among your birth family than among those who are cruel masters to them, you leave your pampered, spoiled lifestyle and become one of the slaves.

As a slave you are confronted with wrongdoing and react to it, then flee for fear of being killed. You then fall in with desert wanderers and choose to live with them, even taking a wife and having children. One day you are confronted by your Creator who tells you that you must go and deliver those people you left, your birth family, who are in bondage.

Taking on the task you leave your current family, wife and children, and you journey back to your birth family and go through very, very trying and hard times as you work as God's messenger to free your people. Finally after extreme hardship your people are freed and you are called to lead them out of their land of bondage and into a new land.

Now stop for a moment and truly consider all you've endured to bring your people out of slavery. It was hard work, it was long and arduous. You suffered, they suffered, you suffered together to bring this all about. Now you take these people on a long journey and stop to camp at the foot of a mountain. You tell the people exactly what has transpired, how they were freed by God, their Creator, their Redeemer and if they will AGREE to abide by their God's covenant all will be well, He will protect them and they will flourish. The people KNOW their road to freedom was one of supernatural happenings, they weren't blinded to how the hand of God worked to set them free. They watched as the Egyptians suffered plague after plague while it didn't touch them, something that is truly inexplicable beyond the miracle of God working.They hoped, they doubted, they hoped again and they were finally told they no longer had to be slaves, they were free from the bondage of their captors. No longer did they have to feel the whip of a slave driver across their backs, no longer did they have to live with scarcely any possessions of their own, no longer did they have to worry their children would be murdered under orders of their slave master, no longer did they have to live in fear of their very lives being forfeited because they became too old to be of any use. These people were FREE!  Their freedom didn't come by the hand of a man, but by the hand of God in great workings before them. They KNEW that God had freed them, they knew the POWER of God before they were ever asked to AGREE to His covenant. They were NOT forced into an agreement with God. These people were told what God expected from them and asked to agree to the terms set forth. God did not bring them out of one bondage only to force them into another under His rule. God wanted WILLING followers, not FORCED captives. Asked to agree to the covenant the people did so, they agreed of their OWN FREE WILL, not a single one of them was forced to agree. Then AFTER they agree you are asked to go meet with your God to receive more information from Him so that life for you and the newly freed people, your people, people of your kindred, your blood, could begin under the love and guidance of One who is above all others. You leave them, and they know you will return, you tell them you will.

Much time passes, and the people who have agreed to live under a new covenant with God begin to doubt this agreement. They see no more evidence that God is acting on their behalf. The one who had delivered them disappeared and could be dead now for all they know and if the deliverer is dead there is no one to communicate between God and them and so that life is over, the agreement forfeit. With these thoughts growing day by day the people begin to imagine how they should continue without God and the new covenant agreement. They decide that perhaps the old gods, the old covenant rituals and such were really better for them. They grew up under masters who used those old gods and if the old gods helped those masters enslave them, maybe the old gods of their former masters would now help them prosper. The old gods liked to be worshiped in images so the people who had been freed by God, the people who had made a covenant agreement with God to be His, now decide to create an image of one of the old gods and break the agreement they made with their Deliverer God.

While you were up in communication with God receiving the laws in written form, you knew nothing of what the people you freed were doing. When you return and realize their grave error in turning from their Deliverer God back to the gods of their former masters, you are grieved at heart! How could they turn so quickly from their Deliverer God? How?!  Not only are YOU very upset, but GOD is very upset too. The people He performed miracle after miracle for turned on Him! If they turned on Him after such a short call for faith, for believing without seeing, without touching, without hearing, then how could they be His people? Without faith it would be impossible to follow Him, He is a God of faith.

Considering doing away with all of these people- descendants for hundreds and hundreds of years going back to Abraham- God imagines starting over and yet you realize the horror of that! These people need to be given another chance, they need to be forgiven, they need more than to be tossed aside at their first failing.  So you plead with God, you plead with the One who has guided you, who has brought you through so much to get where you are. You tell God that if He cannot forgive the sins of the people that you do not want to be His, You want your name taken out of the book, the book that contains the names of ALL who would be God's. You don't want to be a part of God's family any longer if all these people are to be destroyed and taken out of the book as well. God relents, God forgives and continues to claim the people as His, and you remain written in the book of God's.

Every person alive has the opportunity to be written in God's book- to be remembered by God, to be given eternal life by God. YOU really have this opportunity, and it is given to You through a DELIVERER, a SAVIOR, JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD.

YOU CAN BE WRITTEN IN GOD'S BOOK OF REMEMBRANCE, IN GOD'S BOOK OF LIFE- or YOU CAN BE BLOTTED OUT OF THAT BOOK.

Deu_29:20  The LORD will not spare him, but then the anger of the LORD and his jealousy shall smoke against that man, and all the curses that are written in this book shall lie upon him, and the LORD shall blot out his name from under heaven.

Psa_69:28  Let them be blotted out of the book of the living, and not be written with the righteous.

Blotted out, or written in. Not delivered, or delivered.  Not saved, or saved.  To imagine all our names are there and never to be blotted out is to believe a lie of Satan's, a lie he made to Eve in the garden- that she would not die. We can't allow ourselves to be caught in deception. Our names are written there only by the GRACE of our SAVIOR, only by HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS, we must BELIEVE this is our duty, to believe. We aren't to believe in our own righteousness, but in our SAVIOR'S. We agree to HIS sacrifice, we agree to the life HE lived. We agree to be GOD'S people, not people who choose other gods, not people who choose self above god. We agree we have a CREATOR and we have a REDEEMER and it is through them that we LIVE. We agree that this life here and now is a temporary life, and that life eternal is our true home. We do NOT live for riches and a life of ease here and now, but rather a life of extreme hardship and deprivation, a life of a slave knowing they've been delivered and will receive the reward of that deliverance in another life- a life where they are raised from the dead, or called alive and changed to meet their Deliverer in the air to go home with Him. This is the slave journey we are all on, the same journey, the same form of a slave our Savior took on.

Php 2:7  but emptied Himself, taking the form of a slave, having become in the likeness of men (LITV)

We live in the form of a slave, our evil master is Satan, and our loving deliverer is our LORD and SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST.

We live in the hope of unseen but believed deliverance.

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Dan_12:1  And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book

Mal_3:16  Then they that feared the LORD spake often one to another: and the LORD hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the LORD, and that thought upon his name.

Luk_10:20  Notwithstanding in this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you; but rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven.

Rev 13:6  And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven.
Rev 13:7  And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.
Rev 13:8  And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

Rev_17:8  The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition: and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is.

Rev_20:12  And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.

Rev_20:15  And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.

 Rev_21:27  And there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb's book of life.

Rev_22:19  And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.




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http://sites.google.com/site/whostosaywereright2/Home

Do we cry out to our God?

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.

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'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!
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'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.'

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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.'
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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

'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.

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.

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.

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.'

Quoted from- 'THE NECESSITY OF PRAYER  By E.M. BOUNDS' (Excerpt 23)

AMEN.

More tomorrow on this by the GRACE of GOD!

Holy Spirit and Fire

'God wants warm-hearted servants.

The Holy Spirit comes as a fire, to dwell in us; we are to be baptized, with the Holy Ghost and with fire.

Fervency is warmth of soul.

A phlegmatic temperament is abhorrent to vital experience. If our religion does not set us
on fire, it is because we have frozen hearts.

God dwells in a flame; the Holy Ghost descends in fire.

To be absorbed in God's will, to be so greatly in earnest about doing it that our whole being takes fire, is the qualifying condition of the man who would engage in effectual prayer.'

Quoted from- 'THE NECESSITY OF PRAYER  By E.M. BOUNDS' (Excerpt 23)

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Mar_1:8  I indeed have baptized you with water: but he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost.

Luk_3:16  John answered, saying unto them all, I indeed baptize you with water; but one mightier than I cometh, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire

Baptized with the Holy Spirit and FIRE.

Act 2:2  And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting.
Act 2:3  And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them.
Act 2:4  And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.

Cloven tongues like as of FIRE sitting upon EACH of them-and they were FILLED with the Holy Spirit!

Imagine it?! It was REAL. This wasn't some fantasy fiction dreamed up by some over active imagination, this was real!  I've seen movies about the book of Acts and this particular happenstance and the special effects they used for the cloven tongues like fire were very strange because we attribute it to something unreal, something out of the ordinary, something supernatural.  In truth it was something very supernatural! It was a visible sign of the HOLY SPIRIT entering into men. They were FILLED with the Holy Spirit!  We want to be filled with the HOLY SPIRIT don't we?! We should! The fire, the flame of GOD resting upon us as the Holy Spirit fills us, we want this! We need this! We have to have this! Please, LORD, please bless us with the fire of the Holy Spirit! We need this we do and we are at a loss as to how to obtain what we need. Please give this to us undeservedly, because there is nothing we can do to deserve the gift of the Holy Spirit, by Your grace alone we must have the Holy Spirit fill us. All through YOUR righteousness may we have this fire in us as we pray, as we seek YOU with all our HEART, bless US LORD!

Save us!