Hang on in prayer, don't stop praying.

'In these parables of importunate praying, our Lord sets forth, for our information and
encouragement, the serious difficulties which stand in the way of prayer. At the same
time He teaches that importunity conquers all untoward circumstances and gets to itself
a victory over a whole host of hindrances. He teaches, moreover, that an answer to
prayer is conditional upon the amount of faith that goes to the petition. To test this, He
delays the answer. The superficial pray-er subsides into silence, when the answer is
delayed. But the man of prayer hangs on, and on. The Lord recognizes and honours his
faith, and gives him a rich and abundant answer to his faith-evidencing, importunate
prayer.'

Quoted from- 'THE NECESSITY OF PRAYER  By E.M. BOUNDS' (Excerpt 30)

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'The man of prayer- HANGS ON, and ON.'

We do NOT ever stop praying!  When we stop praying, we shun our Creator, our Redeemer. When we stop praying we cut ourselves off from the very source of all true love, true compassion.  Our Father in Heaven wants to help us, He wants to answer our petitions. He knows the end from the beginning while we only know the past and the present.

Constant praying, continuous praying.

It is true the superficial pray-er STOPS praying.
The superficial pray-er does not have faith.
Faith continues on indefinitely, trusting when to all appearances there is NOTHING to trust!  Satan will put up every barrier that he can to get us to stop believing, to stop praying, to kill our faith!

Our prayer must be heartfelt, it must be REAL to our REAL GOD!

We MUST WORSHIP OUR GOD in prayer!

So many would have us live a faith void of true worship of God. They would have us erect ourselves as paramount putting God second, third, fourth, and on down the ladder of importance. How many of us have sacrificed ANYTHING real in order to serve our GOD?

Why do we leave real worship to those we label lunatics and fanatics? They commit vile acts in the name of God so they rightly deserve the label, but their devotion is something tangible.  We are afraid to truly worship God, to give Him all of ourselves, to place Him above all in our lives, to PRAY to HIM as we should.

The consistence, insistent, importunate pray-er is one who knows GOD as a reality, not as a wispy fairy godfather just there to grant petitions. God as a reality is God who knows best and allows the worst for the best and we abide by His decisions even as we continue to pray, pray, pray!

We must hang on in our praying. We must never give up or give in to a superficial relationship with our God. We must hold fast enduring everything while not letting go of our God.

Please, LORD, help us to never let go of YOU.

Insistence

Insistence.

Luk 18:1  And he spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint;
Luk 18:2  Saying, There was in a city a judge, which feared not God, neither regarded man:
Luk 18:3  And there was a widow in that city; and she came unto him, saying, Avenge me of mine adversary.
Luk 18:4  And he would not for a while: but afterward he said within himself, Though I fear not God, nor regard man;
Luk 18:5  Yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.

'This parable stresses the central truth of importunate prayer. The widow presses her
case till the unjust judge yields. If this parable does not teach the necessity for
importunity, it has neither point nor instruction in it. Take this one thought away, and
you have nothing left worth recording. Beyond all cavil, Christ intended it to stand as
an evidence of the need that exists, for insistent prayer.'

Quoted from- 'THE NECESSITY OF PRAYER  By E.M. BOUNDS' (Excerpt 29)

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INSISTENT PRAYER!

Some would have us believe that we shouldn't pray over and over and over for the same thing or else it shows we do not believe God hears us and will grant us our prayer.  Yet here we have the this parable of a widow coming to a judge over and over until the judge finally grants her petition.  She was pleading her case, she was desperately desiring to be avenged against wrong doing. Don't we plead our case? Don't we plead to be avenged of this very world we were born into? Not asking to be born, but gifted with life, gifted with the chance to choose to serve a loving, merciful, forgiving, God.  We plead before our God to be saved from this world, saved from the penalty of the sin we commit, saved from our choices to disobey Him.  We plead for our God to give us new life, a life as His with Him! And this MUST be our constant prayer! This MUST be our insistent prayer! This must be our plea to our Creator, our Redeemer to save us from Satan and his evil, to save us from OUR adversary the DEVIL!

Not only are we to pray insistently for this, we are to pray this way for all things, because this is the prayer of the heart.  A prayer from the heart isn't lightly spoken, or thought silently, without any spirit conviction.  How desperately we need to cultivate true prayer!  And yes, how NECESSARY prayer is for us who live in Christ!

Please, LORD, please help us to be insistent in our praying! Help us to desire You above ALL things, knowing it is YOU who gives us all we need to be YOURS, knowing YOU give us a promise of eternity in YOU, in LOVE.

All by YOUR GRACE!

Praying Without Pretense, Praying Long

'The REPEATED intercessions of Abraham for the salvation of Sodom and Gomorrah present an early example of the necessity for, and benefit deriving from importunate praying. Jacob, wrestling ALL NIGHT with the angel, gives significant emphasis to the power of a dogged perseverance in praying, and shows how, in things spiritual, importunity succeeds, just as effectively as it does in matters relating to time and sense.

As we have noted, elsewhere, Moses prayed FORTY DAYS AND FORTY NIGHTS, seeking to stay the wrath of God against Israel, and his example and success are a stimulus to present day faith in its darkest hour. Eljah repeated and urged his prayer SEVEN TIMES ere the raincloud appeared above the horizon, heralding the success of his prayer and the victory of his faith. On one occasion Daniel though faint and weak, pressed his case THREE WEEKS, ere the answer and the blessing came.

Many nights during His earthly life did the blessed Saviour spend in prayer. In Gethsemane He presented the same petition, THREE TIMES, with unabated, urgent, yet submissive importunity, which involved every element of His soul, and issued in tears and bloody sweat. His life crises were distinctly marked, his life victories all won, in hours of importunate prayer. And the servant is not greater than his Lord.'

Quoted from- 'THE NECESSITY OF PRAYER  By E.M. BOUNDS' (Excerpt 28)

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Praying- all night, praying for 40 days and 40 nights, praying 7 times, praying for 3 weeks, praying 3 times.

These examples are for our LEARNING.  So why do we imagine we can say a single simple prayer and that is that? Why do we lament our God doesn't hear us, doesn't answer our prayers when we scarcely pray one importune prayer? What makes us believe that those closest to God the Father should have to spend agonizing long moments, some times days, some times weeks, some times months in fervent prayer and we should not have to do the same? Why do we spend so LITTLE time in prayer? Why to even imagine a full day of praying is something beyond our comprehension? Maybe we can commit to an hour, but truly more than that we falter, don't we? DON'T WE?! Perhaps a prayer prayed in less than a full minute is all we can muster, is this what we call fervent effectual praying? If your life were on the line and you had to beg for it, how long would you beg? Seriously? If another that you loved had their life on the line would you beg for it long, or only for a moment? I'm not saying our lives are dependent upon the length of our prayers because we can recall Jesus saying the following--

'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. '

'For a PRETENSE make long prayers'   No, praying long is NO good if done for pretense.

Remember this--

'Luk 18:10  Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican.
Luk 18:11  The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican.
Luk 18:12  I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess.
Luk 18:13  And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner.
Luk 18:14  I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.'

The man praying simply 'God be merciful to me a sinner' was justified, not the Pharisee praying long and with a false heart.

We know that the men of God who prayed long- for hours, days, weeks, and months prayed with sincerity and without any pretense, these men had NO GUILE in them!

Rev 14:3 ...the hundred and forty and four thousand, which were redeemed from the earth.
Rev 14:4  These are they which were not defiled with women; for they are virgins. These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. These were redeemed from among men, being the firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb.
Rev 14:5  And in their mouth was found no guile: for they are without fault before the throne of God.

Those who are God's will have NO GUILE in them, there will be no pretense in their prayers and they will pray as they must pray- truthfully, fervently, effectually, all through the Holy Spirit.

Please, LORD, we would be YOURS in our praying, teach us to truly pray as we ought to pray. We would be YOURS!

By YOUR LOVE, YOUR GRACE, YOUR MERCY, YOUR RIGHTEOUSNESS!

The Soul's Paternity- Sonship with God!

'Nothing distinguishes the children of God so clearly and strongly as prayer. It is the one infallible mark and test of being a Christian. Christian people are prayerful, the worldly minded, prayerless. Christians call on God; worldlings ignore God, and call not on His Name. But even the Christian had need to cultivate continual prayer. Prayer must be habitual, but much more than a habit. It is duty, yet one which rises far above, and goes beyond the ordinary implications of the term. It is the EXPRESSION OF A RELATION TO GOD, A YEARNING FOR DIVINE COMMUNION. It is the outward and upward flow of the inward life toward its original fountain. It is an assertion of the soul's paternity, a claiming of the sonship, which links man to the Eternal. Prayer has everything to do with moulding the soul into the image of God, and has everything to do with enhancing and enlarging the measure of Divine grace. It has everything to do with bringing the soul into complete communion with God. It has everything to do with enriching, broadening and maturing the soul's experience of God. That man cannot possibly be called a Christian, who does not pray. By no possible pretext can he claim any right to the term, nor its implied significance. If he does not pray, he is a sinner, pure and simple, for prayer is the only way in which the soul of man can enter into fellowship and communion with the Source of all Christlike spirit and energy. Hence, if he pray not, he is not of the household of faith. '

Quoted from- 'THE NECESSITY OF PRAYER  By E.M. BOUNDS' (Excerpt 27)

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Is this truth, what E.M. Bounds writes? Is it?  Can we be Christ's without communication with Him?

 I can believe people exist without ever communicating with them. I may communicate once a year with someone and that's it, I know they exist and are available for communication if I choose to initiate it, or they choose to do so. However, are they truly an ACTIVE part of my life if I'm not communicating with them? Yes, we may always be related to some of those people we only talk to once every five years and nothing dissolves that blood relation, nothing dissolves the idea of the friendship that was maybe more profound at another juncture in our lives, but lack of communication hinders a GROWING closer, a deepening of the relationship. In fact isn't it true some friendships are mere ghosts of the past? While you have the past to bring back to life through the memories you can stop knowing someone really knowing them as the years pass and you no longer communicate with them. People change, they are no longer the same drinking buddy, or giggly goof-ball, the teasing playful childish behavior may have altered into a mature amusement, but our memories retain what someone once was. We can laugh about someone being the same as ever, and truthfully this is possible, some people never mature but retain a lot of the visages of their childhood, their teenage years, refusing to give them up for a more serious maturity, enjoying their own immaturity and labeling it 'just who they are'.  Still, time that passes when you are not communicating with someone from the past causes a lot of empty slots where life events occur they know nothing about and therefore no longer truly KNOW you. They know the past you, not the present you.  And if we want a living, breathing relationship with Christ as our active, daily Savior, we MUST remain in communication with Him, constant communication.  To think we don't need daily forgiveness, is to believe falsely! The sins remain upon us if we are not in daily communication with God!

What did E.M. Bounds write-- ' It is the EXPRESSION OF A RELATION TO GOD, A YEARNING FOR DIVINE COMMUNION'

A yearning for DIVINE communion!  The expression of a RELATION to GOD!  If God is our everything can we truly believe we have no need of constant prayer with Him, no need of constant communication?  

'It is an assertion of the soul's paternity, a claiming of the sonship, which links man to the Eternal'

The soul's PATERNITY!  He is OUR HEAVENLY FATHER!  And this is something we need to acknowledge daily! He isn't our physical father who in a lot of cases and for many reasons can not be a part of our lives, but He is our HEAVENLY FATHER who is available to us all, and always through every step of our lives! Through the good and the bad, through all the ups and all the downs, our HEAVENLY FATHER is there for us to communicate with!   We are the SONS and DAUGHTERS of GOD! We are truly LINKED to the ETERNAL! If we believe this then we live this! We live our lives knowing our Heavenly Father is our ALL in ALL!

To choose to pray only once a week, or once a year, or once in a lifetime is to choose to fail to recognize God as truly Your Heavenly Father who you need daily, hourly, minutely, always and forever! To choose and fail to recognize your need is to rely upon self. Is it any wonder we are to pray always? This is the recognition of God in all, and ourselves submitted to Him.

PLEASE LORD, help us to pray always, knowing YOU are ALL things and we are but Your creations, Your sons, Your daughters in need of YOU always, constantly. Help us to pray always in YOU!

By YOUR love, grace, mercy!

Truly to be a Christian we must pray always!  If we aren't praying always we are not Christ's, how can we be?

Little lower than the angels-- for a little while

Heb 2:6  But one in a certain place testified, saying, What is man, that thou art mindful of him? or the son of man, that thou visitest him?

Heb 2:7  Thou madest him a little lower than the angels; thou crownedst him with glory and honour, and didst set him over the works of thy hands

(ERV)  For a short time you made him lower than the angels. You crowned him with glory and honor.

(ESV)  You made him for a little while lower than the angels; you have crowned him with glory and honor

(GNB)  You made them for a little while lower than the angels; you crowned them with glory and honor

'The judgment must begin where and over what sin began. Sin began at the Throne of God and over the creation of man.

The creation plan intended man to be only "a little while inferior to the angels." (Heb. 2:7 margin) But in sin man fell even LOWER than the "inferior" position.

Now can God bring an end to sin, and carry out His original plan and none of the angelic host become jealous as did Lucifer?

The judgment is set in the presence of that assembled host. (Dan. 7:10) Jesus coming with His sacrifice asks not only pardon full and complete for His covenant people, but a seat upon His throne. Was His sacrifice sufficient to grant this request?'

Wwn 1989 Special 3

'The redemption that is in Christ Jesus reveals further the objective of God for man. Jesus, too, was "made a little while lower than the angels for the suffering of death" (Heb. 2:9). In His victory, He was "crowned with glory and honor," and "highly exalted" being given "a name which is above every name" (Phil. 2:9). That which God did "when He raised Him from the dead" (Eph. 1:20) not only reveals God's INTENT for man in creation, but also His objective in redemption (Eph. 2:6-7)

Let us, first, observe what the Bible states in regard to God's original placement of man whom He created in His own "likeness." David sang:     What is man, that thou art mindful of him? And the son of man, that thou hast visited him? For thou madest him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet. (Ps. 8:4-6)

The "sanctuary" book of the New Testament, in its preface to the consideration of Jesus Christ as High Priest of our profession, gives a unique interpretation to these verses from Psalms 8. It reads - "Thou madest him a little while inferior to the angels" (Heb. 2:7 margin). The Greek bracu ti - when used of time signifies, "A SHORT TIME, OR FOR A LITTLE WHILE" (Thayer; see also, Arndt & Gingrich.) Then, in comment on "dominion," Paul wrote - "For that He put all in subjection under him, He left nothing that is not put under him. But now we see NOT yet all things put under him. But we see Jesus who was made a little while inferior ( bracu ti ) to the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour (vs. 8-9; emphasis supplied).

As Jesus was for ONLY A LITTLE WHILE inferior to angels, so likewise "the many sons" whom He, the captain of their salvation, will bring to glory shall be for only a little while lower than the angels. IN CHRIST, THE "DIVINE LIKENESS" WAS ONCE MORE REVEALED IN HUMANITY, and through Him as High Priest, the "divine likeness" is to be RESTORED TO MAN. The "first dominion," lost by the first Adam, is regained by the second Adam as He stands at the head of the human race. (Micah 4:8).'

2003 Jul XXXVI 7(03)

When we talk of being made 'new' in Christ, we have to realize that this newness extends far beyond the here and now. Right now we must stay in this world and follow the example of Christ, live in the sinfilled existence totally reliant upon our Father God for all things. Yes, now we suffer, now we must endure, now we live in darkness striving to see through to the light clearly, now we WALK by FAITH. We become NEW creatures in Christ and our expectations of our future life WITH HIM is our hope, this is the goal we strive for in life right now! If we are striving for riches now, we strive in vain. If we are striving for some semblance of peace in our lives now, we strive in vain! If strive for an existence free from pain, from tiredness, from aging, from fear, from all manner of evil- we strive in vain! We are NOT to be taken OUT of this world and this world is controlled by the Prince of darkness, Satan himself! And if we aren't to be taken out of this world, then why do we imagine we can live in this world as if in a bubble that magically shields us from all things evil? Those evil things will remain until the end, we are to be KEPT from evil, not the evil kept from us. There is no barrier erected that eliminates evil surrounding us, at best we are given ARMOR, we are given a SWORD, we are given a SHIELD and this protective gear is worn in the midst of the battle. No one who isn't in battle would choose to be in full dress armor, bearing sword and shield, living that way in their idyllic world without evil. We are outfitted in armor and given weapons BECAUSE we are in BATTLE, a constant BATTLE as long as we are in this world!

For a little while we will remain lower, very inferior to our intended purpose, our intended creation. Just a little while in the realm of ETERNITY where we are made into the beings we were intended to be. Where now we are sinners, then we are sinners made NEW in CHRIST JESUS.

By the GRACE of our LORD SAVIOR we will wear the armor offered, we will seek to fall under the grace of our LORD and the prayer He prayed for us to be kept from evil, not taken out of the evil ruled world, but kept from the evil that rules it while living in the world.

All through our SAVIOR'S RIGHTEOUSNESS!  HIS GRACE and MERCY! HIS LOVE!

Sheer Necessity

'OUR Lord Jesus declared that "men ought always to pray and not to faint," and the parable in which His words occur, was taught with the intention of saving men from faint-heartedness and weakness in prayer. Our Lord was seeking to teach that laxity must be guarded against, and persistence fostered and encouraged. There can be no two opinions regarding the importance of the exercise of this indispensable quality in our praying.

Importunate prayer is a mighty movement of the soul toward God. It is a stirring of the deepest forces of the soul, toward the throne of heavenly grace. It is the ability to hold on, press on, and wait. Restless desire, restful patience, and strength of grasp are all embraced in it. It is not an incident, or a performance, but a passion of soul. It is not a want, half-needed, but a sheer necessity.

The wrestling quality in importunate prayers does not spring from physical vehemence or fleshly energy. It is not an impulse of energy, not a mere earnestness of soul; it is an inwrought force, a faculty implanted and aroused by the Holy Spirit. Virtually, it is the intercession of the Spirit of God, in us; it is, moreover, "the effectual, fervent prayer, which availeth much." The Divine Spirit informing every element within us, with the energy of His own striving, is the essence of the importunity which urges our praying at the mercy-seat, to continue until the fire falls and the blessing descends. This wrestling in prayer may not be boisterous nor vehement, but quiet, tenacious and urgent. Silent, it may be, when there are no visible outlets for its mighty forces.'

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

******* By the grace of God- more tomorrow!

Believing... ye shall receive

'These recorded instances of the exercise and reward of faith, give us easily to see that, in almost every instance, faith was blended with trust until it is not too much to say that the former was swallowed up in the latter. It is hard to properly distinguish the specific activities of these two qualities, faith and trust. But there is a point, beyond all peradventure, at which faith is relieved of its burden, so to speak; where trust comes

along and says: "You have done your part, the rest is mine!"

In the incident of the barren fig tree, our Lord transfers the marvelous power of faith to His disciples. To their exclamation, "How soon is the fig tree withered alway!" He said:

"If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not only do this which is done to the fig tree, but also if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; it shall be done. And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive."

When a Christian believer attains to faith of such magnificent proportions as these, he steps into the realm of implicit trust. He stands without a tremor on the apex of his spiritual outreaching. He has attained faith's veritable top stone which is unswerving, unalterable, unalienable trust in the power of the living God.'

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

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If we have faith… in prayer.

Faith in our GOD to do ALL that must be done so HIS will can be done in our lives!

This--

'But there is a point, beyond all peradventure, at which faith is relieved of its burden, so to speak; where trust comes along and says: "You have done your part, the rest is mine!'

This is truth! 

Faith-trust.

Belief.

Knowing.

Realizing.

Unquestioning God's will.  Asking for intercession believing that HE will hear and all that follows is a result of His hearing and answering according to HIS will- not ours!

If we ask and the result is NOT immediate  even if it's needed immediately, the answer is GOD'S and we MUST believe  NO matter how AWFUL our situation, that somehow it is for the good, somehow BEYOND our comprehension but NOT beyond our God's comprehension!

We have to BELIEVE- we do NOT have to comprehend all the things of God.

Deu_29:29 The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.

God doesn't have to give us explanations! When we demand explanations from each other, we want people to explain their reasonings to us, we want to UNDERSTAND, we don't want to be left in the dark. So we want God to explain as well. We want to UNDERSTAND and when something defies our comprehension we do not like it at all. 

Faith.

We pray and believe.

We must believe .

Please, Lord, help our UNBELIEF! Rid us of our unbelief!

Help us as we pray, without You our prayers are empty, meaningless.

By YOUR GRACE!