R.A. Torrey
“Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. 7 And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:6-7
There are two words often overlooked in the lesson about prayer which Paul gives us
in Phil. 4:6,7.
The two important words often overlooked are, “WITH THANKSGIVING.”
In approaching God to ask for new blessings, we should never forget to return thanks
for blessings already granted. If any one of us would stop and think how many of the prayers which we have offered to God have been answered, and how seldom we have gone back to God to return thanks for the answers thus given, I am sure we would be overwhelmed with confusion. We should be just as definite in returning thanks as we are in prayer. We come to God with most specific petitions, but when we return thanks to Him, our thanksgiving is indefinite and general.
Doubtless one reason why so many of our prayers lack power is because we have neglected to return thanks for blessings already received. If any one were to constantly come
to us asking help from us, and should never say “Thank you” for the help thus given, we
would soon tire of helping one so ungrateful. Indeed, regard for the one we were helping
would hold us back from encouraging such rank ingratitude. Doubtless our heavenly Father
out of a wise regard for our highest welfare oftentimes refuses to answer petitions that we
send up to Him in order that we may be brought to a sense of our ingratitude and taught
to be thankful.
God is deeply grieved by the thanklessness and ingratitude of which so many of us are
guilty. When Jesus healed the ten lepers and only one came back to give Him thanks, in
wonderment and pain He exclaimed, “Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine? ” (Luke 17:17)
How often must He look down upon us in sadness at our forgetfulness of His repeated
blessings, and His frequent answer to our prayers.
Returning thanks for blessings already received increases our faith and enables us to
approach God with new boldness and new assurance. Doubtless the reason so many have
so little faith when they pray, is because they take so little time to meditate upon and thank God for blessings already received. As one meditates upon the answers to prayers already granted, faith waxes bolder and bolder, and we come to feel in the very depths of our souls that there is nothing too hard for the Lord. As we reflect upon the wondrous goodness of God toward us on the one hand, and upon the other hand upon the little thought and strength and time that we ever put into thanksgiving, we may well humble ourselves before God and confess our sin.
The mighty men of prayer in the Bible, and the mighty men of prayer throughout the
ages of the church’s history have been men who were much given to thanksgiving and praise. David was a mighty man of prayer, and how his Psalms abound with thanksgiving and praise. The apostles were mighty men of prayer; of them we read that “they were continually in the temple, praising and blessing God.” Paul was a mighty man of prayer, and how often in his epistles he bursts out in definite thanksgiving to God for definite blessings and definite answers to prayers. Jesus is our model in prayer as in everything else. We find in the study of His life that His manner of returning thanks at the simplest meal was so noticeable that two of His disciples recognized Him by this after His resurrection.
“In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.” 1 Thessalonians 5:18
Thanksgiving is one of the inevitable results of being filled with the Holy Spirit and one
who does not learn “in everything to give thanks” cannot continue to pray in the Spirit. If
we would learn to pray with power we would do well to let these two words sink deep into
our hearts: “WITH THANKSGIVING.”
From HOW TO PRAY, by R. A. Torrey
Abiding
God Watches Over and Answers the Prayers of His Saints in the Earth [podcast]
“For the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open unto their prayers: but the face of the Lord is against them that do evil.” 1 Peter 3:12
Eyes – “are over the righteous”
“He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; he led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye.” Deuteronomy 32:10
“But to the saints that are in the earth, and to the excellent, in whom is all my delight.” Psalm 16:3
Ears – “are open unto their prayers” (John 15:7).
Face – “against them that do evil” (1 John 3).
God is answering the prayers of His saints today in Jesus Christ! (Matthew 7:7; John 14:13-14; 16:23-24)
“The eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open unto their prayers.”
God’s people are “the children of the highest” (Luke 6:35). As our heavenly Father, the only perfect parent in existence, He desires to hear and answer all our prayers—with a yes, no, or wait. Let us readily make our needs and desires known to Him in prayer.
“Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.”
Philippians 4:6
Abide – God wants us in perpetual vital union with Him. That’s what “abide” means when Jesus says “abide in me” (John 15:1-16).
As we abide in Christ His eyes are over us and His ears are open…..
The psalmist wrote:
“Nevertheless I am continually with thee: thou hast holden me by my right hand. 24 Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel (Word), and afterward receive me to glory. 25 Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee. 26 My flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever. 27 For, lo, they that are far from thee shall perish: thou hast destroyed all them that go a whoring from thee. 28 But it is good for me to draw near to God: I have put my trust in the Lord GOD, that I may declare all thy works.” Psalms 73:23-28
Prayer: Heavenly Father, teach me to pray, to seek Your face in abiding oneness and communion with You first and foremost. I love You my LORD Jesus and thank You for Your perfect redemption which alone grants full access to the throne of grace in Jesus’ name, amen.
From Moments with Our Master [book] 365 Day Devotional book available at safeguardyoursoul.com/store and amazon. English and Spanish.
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There is absolutely no possibility that one can “walk in the Spirit” and be “led by the Spirit” without a life with Christ in abiding fellowship prayer (Galatians 5:16; Romans 8:14).
“The secret place of prayer is the place to fight our battles and gain our victories.” R.A. Torrey, How to Pray, p. 88
Jesus taught the need for “importunity” or persistence in prayer (Luke 11:1-13; 18:1-8). This is for the prayers we are praying for temporal, earthly things and most importantly, praying towards being with Christ eternally. The Son of God also spoke of the love of many waxing cold in the final days and the necessity of enduring to the end, “press(ing) toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:13-14).
“Our whole life should be a life of prayer. We should walk in constant communion with God. There should be a constant upward looking of the soul to God. We should walk so habitually in His presence that even when we awake in the night it would be the most natural thing in the world for us to speak to Him in thanksgiving or in petition.” R.A. Torrey, How to Pray, p. 94
Why is prayer important? Because prayer is communing with and getting to know the LORD better and better—the very divine purpose for which we were created (John 17:3).
Prayer is perpetual fellowship with our LORD who came and died that we might know Himself and the Father (John 17:3). Prayer is not merely a privilege granted to believers to call on God in the time of crisis or to obtain their heart’s desires for temporal things. Even though offering supplications (humble requests) is a divine privilege and command to us and the very promise of God, that’s but one aspect of prayer. Prayer is saving faith in action—the obedience of engaging in a personal, perpetual, and intimate relationship with the Savior. Praying is an absolute imperative to fellowship with Jesus and overcoming, which is essential to receiving final salvation. If prayer were not so important in present abiding, victory, and of eternal consequence, there would have been no reason that the Son of God would have uttered the words of warning He issued forth in Luke 21:34-36:
“And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares. For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth. Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man.” Luke 21:34-36
“It is one thing to be interested in our Lord’s return, and to talk about it, and quite another thing to be prepared for it. We live in an atmosphere that has a constant tendency to unfit us for Christ’s coming. The world tends to draw us down by its gratifications and by its cares. There is only one way by which we can rise triumphant above these things – by constant watching unto prayer, that is, by sleeplessness unto prayer. Watch in this passage is the same strong word used in Ephesians 6:18, and always the same strong phrase in every season. The man who spends little time in prayer, who is not steadfast and constant in prayer, will not be ready for the Lord when He comes. But we may be ready. How? Pray! Pray! Pray!” R. A. Torrey, How to Pray, p. 23
Scripture informs us that Christ died to purchase a people unto Himself whom He is presently “sanctify(ing) and cleanse(ing) it with the washing of water by the word.” Jesus will soon return to gather a people “to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.”
“Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; 26 That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, 27 That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.” Ephesians 5:25-27
HOW did Jesus teach us to overcome temptation to sin and be ready with unspotted garments for His soon return?
“Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Matthew 26:41
Prayer is a matter of life and death. The person who doesn’t find it important to pray is not living by faith and is denying Christ. Most people believe that in order to deny Christ, one must verbally denounce Him. Not so! God’s Word reveals to us that backsliding—departing from Christ as “first love”—happens in the heart (Revelation 2:1-5).
“The backslider in heart shall be filled with his own ways (will reap an apostate state of heart): and a good man shall be satisfied from himself.” Proverbs 14:14
A person who is not in abiding fellowship with Christ through prayer merely has “a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away” (2 Timothy 3:5).
Any person who has gotten saved and yet now does not acknowledge and enact what Jesus instructed, is in denial of Him. According to the LORD, His people must “watch” and “pray” to “be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man.”
One’s relationship to Christ is directly reflected in his prayer life or lack thereof. If one has no prayer life, it is because he does not count the Son of God important enough to spend time with or to get to know. Because of this, that person fatally allows the “the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things” to displace His relationship with the Savior.
“Lord, teach us to pray.” We also should ask the LORD to “teach us to pray.” The disciples called on Jesus to teach them to pray—to have a prayer life. Christ answered them and us by giving the whole Church a model prayer to be followed in spontaneous and joyful relationship. Here it is:
“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. 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. Give us day by day our daily bread. 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.” Luke 11:1-4
Jesus Is Coming.
Prayer: Father in Heaven, in the name of Jesus Christ, I ask You to teach me to pray. Here and now I lay my life into Your holy hands afresh. You must increase, and I must decrease. In the name of Jesus, please bless this life to be dead and buried and raised up by You, LORD. In Jesus’ Name, amen.
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