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

by Andrew Murray

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.