The Prayer Life [Annotated, Updated]: Persevering in Prayer

by Andrew Murray

What had been said in the letter, titled The State of the Church, called for deep searching of heart. Professor de Vos thought there could be no doubt about the truth of the statement in regard to the lack of spiritual power. He asked if it was time for us to come together and in God’s presence to find out what might be the cause of the evil. He wrote, “If only we study the conditions in all sincerity, we will have to acknowledge that our unbelief and sin are the cause of the lack of spiritual power; that this condition is one of sin and guilt before God, and is nothing less than a direct grieving of God’s Holy Spirit.”

The Lord graciously so directed it that we were gradually led to the sin of prayerlessness as one of the deepest roots of the evil. No one could plead himself free from this. Nothing so reveals the defective spiritual life in a pastor and the congregation as the lack of believing and unceasing prayer. Prayer is indeed the very pulse of the spiritual life. It is the great means of bringing to a pastor and the people the blessing and power of heaven. Persevering and believing prayer means a strong and abundant spiritual life.

What is it, then, that makes prayerlessness such a great sin? At first, it is simply seen as a weakness. There is so much talk about lack of time and all sorts of distractions, that the deep guilt of the situation is not recognized. Let it be our honest desire that from now on the sin of prayerlessness will be truly sinful to us.

joy in prayer is sign of communion with God that shows that God is everything to them.

If a friend comes to visit them, they have time, they make time – even at the cost of sacrifice, for the sake of enjoying conversation with the friend. Yes, they have time for everything that really interests them, but they have no time for fellowship with God and to delight themselves in Him! They find time for someone who can be of service to them; but day after day, month after month passes, and they find no time to spend even one hour with God.

It is the cause of a deficient spiritual life. It is proof that, for the most part, our life is still under the power of the flesh. Prayer is the pulse of life; the doctor can tell the condition of our heart by our pulse. The sin of prayerlessness is proof for the ordinary Christian or pastor that the life of God in the soul is in deadly sickness and weakness.

does not go out but by prayer and fasting (Matthew 17:19-21). If the life is not one of self-denial and of fasting – that is, of letting the world go; if it is not a life of prayer – that is, of laying hold of heaven, then faith cannot be exercised. It is in a life lived according to the flesh and not according to the Spirit that we find the origin of the prayerlessness of which we complain. As we came out of the meeting, a brother said to me, “That is the whole difficulty; we want to pray in the Spirit and at the same time walk after the flesh, and this is impossible.” If someone is sick and desires healing, it is very important that the true cause of the sickness is discovered. This is always the first step toward recovery. If the specific cause is not recognized and attention is directed to secondary causes or to supposed but not real causes, healing is out of the question.

Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. . . . If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit (Galatians 5:16, 25). The Spirit must be honored not only as the author of a new life, but also as the leader and director of our entire walk. Otherwise, we are what the apostle calls “carnal.”

There is no means of dealing with the flesh except as Christ dealt with it, bearing it to the cross. Our old man is crucified with him (Romans 6:6); so we, by faith, also crucify it and regard and treat it daily as a detestable thing that finds its rightful place on the accursed cross.

When a Christian does not yield entirely to the leading of the Spirit – and this is certainly the will of God and the work of His grace – he lives, without knowing it, under the power of the flesh. This life of the flesh manifests itself in many different ways. It appears in the impatience of your spirit; in the anger that so unexpectedly arises in you; in the lack of love for which you have so often blamed yourself; in the pleasure found in eating and drinking, about which at times your conscience has scolded you; in seeking for your own will and honor; in your confidence in your own wisdom and power; and in your love of the pleasure in the world, of which you are sometimes ashamed before God. All this is life according to the flesh. Ye are yet carnal (1 Corinthians 3:3). That text, perhaps, disturbs you at times, for you do not have full peace and joy in God.

The place of prayer is the place where the decisive victory is obtained. The enemy uses all his power to lead the Christian, and above all, the pastor, to neglect prayer. He knows that however admirable the sermon may be, however attractive the service, however faithful the pastoral visitation, none of these things can damage him or his kingdom if prayer is neglected. When the church shuts herself up to the power of fervent prayer, and the soldiers of the Lord have received on their knees power from on high, then the powers of darkness will be shaken and souls will be delivered.

God’s child can conquer everything by prayer. Is it any wonder that Satan does his utmost to take away that weapon from the Christian, or to hinder him in the use of it? How does Satan hinder prayer? He does so by temptation to postpone or restrict it, by bringing in wandering thoughts and all sorts of distractions, or through unbelief and hopelessness.

After all the other parts of the armor had been named, Paul adds, With all prayer and supplication in the Spirit (Ephesians 6:18). Without prayer, the helmet of salvation, the shield of faith, and the sword of the Spirit, which is God’s Word, have no power. All depends on prayer. May God teach us to firmly believe and live this!

We must not comfort ourselves with the thought of standing in a right relationship to the Lord Jesus while the sin of prayerlessness has power over us, and while we, along with the whole church, have to complain about our feeble lives that make us unfit to pray for ourselves, for the church, or for missions as we ought. If we recognize, in the first place, that a right relationship to the Lord Jesus, above all else includes prayer, with both the desire and power to pray according to God’s will, then we have something that gives us the right to rejoice in Him and to rest in Him.

naturally discouragement will be the result of self-effort and will shut out all hope of improvement or victory. This indeed is the condition of many Christians when called on to persevere in prayer as intercessors. They feel it is something entirely beyond their reach – that they do not have the power for the self-sacrifice and consecration necessary for such prayer. They shrink from the effort and struggle that will, as they suppose, make them unhappy. They have tried in the power of the flesh to conquer the flesh – a wholly impossible thing. They have endeavored by Beelzebub to cast out Beelzebub – and this can never happen. It is Jesus alone who can subdue the flesh and the devil.

Oh, if only we would take time for the inner chamber so that we might experience in full reality the presence of this almighty Jesus! What a blessedness would be ours through faith – an unbroken fellowship with the omnipotent and almighty Lord.

Think how we, notwithstanding our conviction of our nothingness, may live as true children of the King, in communion with our Father, and may demonstrate something of the character of our Lord Jesus in the holy fellowship with His Father that He had when on earth. Think how in the inner chamber the hour of prayer may become the happiest time in the whole day for us, and how God may use us to share a part in carrying out His plans and make us fountains of blessing for the world around us.

Fellowship with God in Jesus Christ will lead us to the experience that there is nothing good in us, and that we can have fellowship with God only as our faith becomes a humbling of ourselves as Christ humbled Himself, and as we truly live in Him as He is in the Father.

Prayer is not merely coming to God to ask something from Him. It is, above all else, fellowship with God and being brought under the power of His holiness and love, until He takes possession of us and stamps our entire nature with the lowliness of Christ, which is the secret of all true worship.

God has great patience with His children. He bears with us in our slow progress with Fatherly patience. Let each child of God rejoice in all that God’s Word promises. The stronger our faith, the more earnestly we will persevere to the end.

Thanks be unto God, who always causes us to triumph in the Christ (2 Corinthians 2:14). We are more than conquerors through him that loved us (Romans 8:37).

We forget that the entire flesh with all its affections, whether manifested in the body or soul, must be regarded as crucified and must be handed over to death. We must not be satisfied with a feeble life, but we must seek for an abundant life. We must surrender ourselves entirely so that the Spirit can take full possession of us, manifesting that life in us so that there may come an entire transformation in our spiritual being by which the complete mastery of Christ and the Spirit is recognized.

Yes, the Holy Spirit can fill you with the joy and victory of the resurrection of Christ as the power of your daily life here in the midst of the trials and temptations of this world. Let the cross humble you to death.

Live in the Word; live in the love and infinite faithfulness of the Lord Jesus. Even though we may progress slowly and may often stumble, the faith that always thanks Him – not for experiences, but for the promises on which it can rely – goes on from strength to strength, still increasing in the blessed assurance that God Himself will perfect His work in us.

The connection between the prayer life and the Spirit life is close and lasting. It is not merely that we can receive the Spirit through prayer, but the Spirit life requires, as an indispensable thing, a continuous prayer life. I can be led continually by the Spirit only as I continually give myself to prayer. This was very evident in the life of our Lord. A study of His life will give us a wonderful view of the power and holiness of prayer.

Our first work, therefore, ought to be to come into God’s presence – not with our ignorant prayers or with many words and thoughts, but in the confidence that the divine work of the Holy Spirit is being carried on within us. This confidence will encourage reverence and quietness, and will also enable us, in dependence on the help that the Spirit gives, to lay our desires and heart-needs before God.

Thanksgiving will draw our hearts out to God and keep us engaged with Him; it will take our attention from ourselves and give the Spirit room in our hearts.

Oh, it is no wonder that we have been prayerless and have felt this work to be too heavy for us, if we have tried to hold fellowship with the eternal God apart from His Spirit, who reveals the Father and the Son.

If anything can make us hate and detest sin, it is considering Christ on the cross. Come once again with me to the judgment seat of the Great Day, and see the bottomless pit of darkness wherein countless souls will be plunged under the sentence, Depart from me, ye cursed, into eternal fire (Matthew 25:41). Oh, will not these words soften our hearts and fill us with a never-to-be-forgotten horror of sin, so that we may hate it with a perfect hatred? Is there anything else that can help us to understand what sin is? Yes, there is. Turn your eyes inward, behold your own heart, and see sin there.

One great power of sin is that it blinds us so that we do not recognize its true character. Even the Christian himself finds an excuse in the thought that he can never be perfect and that daily sin is a necessity. He is so accustomed to the thought of sinning that he has almost lost the power and ability of mourning over sin; yet there can be no real progress in grace apart from an increased consciousness of the sin and guilt of every transgression against God.

There cannot be a more important question than this: “How can I regain the lost tenderness of conscience and become prepared to really offer to God the sacrifice of a broken heart?” The Bible teaches us the way. Let the Christian remember what God thinks about sin – the hatred with which His holiness burns against it and the solemn sacrifice that He made to conquer sin and deliver us from it. Let him wait patiently in God’s presence until His holiness shines upon him and he cries out with Isaiah, Woe is me! for I am dead because I am a man of unclean lips. (Isaiah 6:5). Let him remember the cross and what the love of Christ had to endure there through the unspeakable pain that sin caused Him. Let him ask if this will not teach him to listen to the voice that says, Oh, do not this abominable thing that I hate (Jeremiah 44:4). Let him take time, so that the blood and love of the cross may exercise their full influence on him, and let him think of sin as nothing less than giving his hand to Satan and to his power. Is not this a terrible result of our prayerlessness and of our short and hurried waiting before God – that the true knowledge of sin is almost lost?

Do you not begin to see that the sin of prayerlessness has had a more terrible effect than you at first supposed? It is because of this hurried and superficial time with God that the sense of sin is so weak and that no motives have power to help you hate and flee from sin as you should. Nothing except hidden, humble, constant fellowship with God can teach you, as a child of God, to hate sin as God wants you to hate it. Nothing but the constant nearness and unceasing power of the living Christ can make it possible for you to properly understand what sin is and to detest it. Without this deeper understanding of sin, there will be no thought of appropriating the victory that is made possible for you in Christ Jesus, and that will be worked in you by the Holy Spirit. O my God, cause me to know my sin and teach me to wait before You and to wait on You until Your Spirit causes something of Your holiness to rest upon me! O my God, cause me to know my sin, and let this drive me to listen to the promise, Whosoever abides in him does not sin [1 John 3:6], and to expect the fulfillment from You!

If you do not know how to spend half an hour in prayer, take up the subject of God’s holiness. Bow before Him. Give yourself time, and also give God time, that He and you may come into communion with one another. It is a great work, but one accompanied by great blessing. If you want to strengthen yourself in the practice of this Holy Presence, take up the Holy Word. Take, for example, the book of Leviticus; notice how God seven times gives the command, Ye shall be holy; for I am holy (11:44, 45; 19:2; 20:7, 26; 21:8; 22:32). Still more frequent in the Bible is the expression, I am the Lord that doth sanctify you (see, for example, Exodus 31:13). This great thought is taken over into the New Testament. Peter says, Be ye holy in all manner of conversation; for it is written, Be ye holy, for I am holy (1 Peter 1:15-16). Paul writes in his first epistle, that your hearts may be confirmed in holiness, irreprehensible before God (1 Thessalonians 3:13); God has not called us unto uncleanness, but unto sanctification (1 Thessalonians 4:7); and Faithful is he that has called you, who will also do it (1 Thessalonians 5:24). Nothing but the knowledge of God, as the Holy One, will make us holy. How are we to obtain that knowledge of God, except in the inner chamber?

No man can expect to make progress in holiness who is not often and long alone with God.

It was because Christ humbled Himself and became obedient unto death – the death on the cross – that God so highly exalted Him. Paul, in this connection, exhorts us, Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus (Philippians 2:5). We see, above everything else, that the obedience of Christ, which was so pleasing to God, must really become the characteristic of our nature and of our entire walk. Just as a servant knows that he must first obey his master in all things, so the surrender to a complete and unquestionable obedience must become the essential characteristic of our lives. How little this is understood by Christians! How many there are who allow themselves to be misled, and who rest satisfied with the thought that sin is a necessity, that one must sin every day!

We try to get rid of a servant as quickly as possible who is habitually disobedient, but it is not regarded as anything extraordinary if a child of God is disobedient every day. Disobedience is acknowledged daily, yet there is no turning away from it. Is not this the reason why so much prayer for the power of the Holy Spirit is offered, and yet so few answers come? Do we not read that God has given his Holy Spirit to them that obey him (Acts 5:32)?

If ye love me, keep my commandments; and I will ask the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter (John 14:15-16). Obedience is essential as a preparation for the reception of the Spirit. This thought is often repeated by Jesus: He that has my commandments and keeps them, he it is that loves me; and he that loves me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him and will manifest myself to him (John 14:21). This is also seen in John 14:23: He who loves me will keep my words, and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him and dwell with him. Also see John 15: If ye abide in me and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you (15:7); If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love (15:10); Ye are my friends if ye do whatsoever I command you (15:14).

He cannot with His Spirit make an abiding home in the heart of one who does not surrender himself completely to a life of obedience.

It is impossible to be a healthy Christian, and still more impossible to be a preacher in the power of God, if everything is not sacrificed to gain the victory. The answer to the question as to how we attain it is simple. All is in Christ. Thanks be unto God, who always causes us to triumph in the Christ (2 Corinthians 2:14). In all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us (Romans 8:37). It all depends on our right relationship to Christ, our entire surrender, perfect faith, and unbroken fellowship with Him.

O Christian, believe that there is a victorious life! Christ, the victor, is your Lord, who will undertake for you in everything and will enable you to do all that the Father expects from you. Be of good courage. Will you not trust Him to do this great work for you who has given His life for you and has forgiven your sins?

We cannot possibly be satisfied with anything less than to walk with God – each day, each hour, and each moment, in Christ, through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Quote from Bishop Moule

1. As you enter the inner chamber, let your first work be to thank God for the unspeakable love that invites you to come to Him and to converse freely with Him. If your heart is cold and dead, remember that Christianity is not a matter of feeling, but has to do first with the will. Raise your heart to God and thank Him for the assurance you have that He looks down on you and will bless you. Through such an act of faith, you honor God and draw your soul away from being occupied with itself.

2. You must prepare yourself for prayer by prayerful Bible study. The main reason why the inner chamber is not more attractive to many people is that people do not know how to pray. Their stock of words is soon exhausted, and they do not know what else to say, because they forget that prayer is not a one-person speech where everything comes from one side, but it is a dialogue, where God’s child listens to what the Father says, replies to it, and then asks for the things he needs.

3. When you have thus received the Word into your heart, turn to prayer. Do not attempt it hastily or thoughtlessly, as though you already knew well enough how to pray. Prayer in our own strength brings no blessing. Take time to present yourself reverently and in quietness before God. Remember His greatness and holiness and love. Think over what you want to ask from Him. Do not be satisfied with going over the same things every day. No child goes on saying the same thing day after day to his earthly father. Conversation with the Father is influenced by the needs of the day. Let your prayer be something specific, arising either out of the Word that you have read, or out of the real needs of your soul that you long to have satisfied.

4. What has been said is in reference to your own needs, but you know that we are also to pray in order to help in the needs of others. One main reason why prayer in the inner chamber does not bring more joy and blessing is that it is too selfish, and selfishness is the death of prayer. Remember your family, your congregation and its needs, your own neighborhood, and the Christians around you. Let your heart be enlarged, and take up the interests of missions and of the church through the whole world. Become an intercessor,

A child can ask his father for bread. A fully grown son discusses with him about all the interests of his business and about his further purposes. A weak child of God prays only for himself, but a fully grown person in Christ understands how to consult with God over what must take place in the kingdom. Let your prayer list bear the names of those for whom you pray, including your minister, all other ministers, and the different missionary concerns with which you are connected. The inner chamber will really become a wonder of God’s goodness and a fountain of great joy. It will become the most blessed place on earth.

5. Do not forget the close bond between the inner chamber and the outer world. The attitude of the inner chamber must remain with us all day. The object of the inner chamber is to unite us to God so thoroughly that we may have Him always abiding with us. Sin, thoughtlessness, and yielding to the flesh or to the world make us unfit for the inner chamber and bring a cloud over the soul. If you have stumbled or fallen, return to the inner chamber; let your first work be to invoke the blood of Jesus and to claim cleansing by it. Do not rest until by confession you have repented of and put away your sin.

Let the obedience of faith, in which you pray in secret, rule you constantly. The inner chamber is intended to bind us to God, to supply us with power from God, and to enable us to live for God alone. We ought to thank God for the inner chamber and for the blessed life that He will enable us to experience and nourish there.

There can be no conversation with a holy God, no fellowship between heaven and earth, and no power for the salvation of the souls of others unless much time is set apart for it. Just as it is necessary for a child to eat and to learn every day for many years, so the life of grace entirely depends on the time people are willing to give to it day by day.

Why must He, who had no sin to confess, sometimes spend all night in prayer to God? Because the divine life had to be strengthened in communion with His Father. His experience of a life in which He took time for fellowship with God has enabled Him to share that life with us.