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

by Andrew Murray

God must have, for fellowship with Himself, the first and the best of your time. Without this, your preaching and labor have little power.

What a study for the inner chamber! These passages teach us that unceasing prayer formed a large part of Paul’s service in the gospel. We see the high spiritual aim that he set before himself in his work on behalf of believers, and the tender and self-sacrificing love with which he ever continued to think of the church and its needs. Let us ask God to bring each one of us, and all the ministers of His Word, to a life in which such prayer is the healthy and natural outflow.

Many pray for the Spirit so they can make use of Him and His power for their work. This is certainly wrong. It is He who must use you. Your relationship toward Him must be one of deep dependence and utter submission. The Spirit must have you entirely and always, and in all things under His power.

Thus we learn what the relationship of the minister toward the Spirit should be. He must have a strong belief that the Spirit is in him, will teach him in his daily life, and will strengthen him to bear witness to the Lord Jesus in his preaching and visiting. He must live in ceaseless prayer that he may be kept and strengthened by the power of the Spirit.

When the Lord promised the apostles that they would receive power when the Holy Spirit had come upon them, and He commanded them to wait for Him, it was as though He had said, “Do not dare to preach without this power. It is the indispensable preparation for your work. Everything depends on it.”

There must be deep confession of guilt that we have so constantly grieved the Spirit, because we have not lived daily as His ministers; we must have simple childlike surrender to His leading in sure confidence that the Lord will work a change in us; and further, we must have daily fellowship with the Lord Jesus in ceaseless prayer. He will then give to us the Holy Spirit as rivers of living water.

A little of the Word and a little prayer is death to the spiritual life. Much of the Word with a little prayer results in an unhealthy life. Much prayer with a little of the Word gives more life, but without steadfastness. A full measure of the Word and prayer each day gives a healthy and powerful life.

In His prayer life, He manifested two things: first, that the Word supplies us with material for prayer and encourages us in expecting everything from God. The second is that it is only by prayer that we can live such a life that every word of God can be fulfilled in us.

Prophesying to the bones, that is, preaching, has accomplished a great work. The beautiful new bodies were there, but the prophesying to the Spirit, “Come, O Spirit” – that is, prayer – accomplished a far more wonderful thing. The power of the Spirit was revealed through prayer.

Just think of a student, a teacher, a businessman, or a warrior. He who does not give himself wholeheartedly to his calling is not likely to succeed. That is still more true of the Christian life, and above all of the high and holy task of communing in prayer with a holy God and of being always well-pleasing to Him. It is because of this that God has said so impressively, And ye shall seek me, and find me, for ye shall seek me with all your heart (Jeremiah 29:13).