Greetings All,
Since our church is setting aside this Thursday, December 15, as a day of fasting and prayer, this week's 'thought'
has to do with fasting and prayer. I know its the season for
celebration, parties and feasting, but as a church
we felt led to spend a day fasting and seeking God in prayer. Any who
can, or would like to join us in that endeavor, are more than welcome to
do so.
Therefore, since prayer is our church's
focus for this week, I wanted to send out some thoughts on prayer and
one on fasting by various Christian authors. I hope they will
encourage you in your pursuit of claiming what E. M. Bounds calls, our
"immeasurable inheritance." Enjoy.
"None can believe how powerful prayer is, and what it is able to effect, but those who have learned it by experience." Martin Luther
"Faith
is the essential quality in the heart of any person who desires to
communicate with God. He must believe and stretch out the hand of faith
for that which he cannot see or prove. Prayer is actually faith
claiming and taking hold of its immeasurable inheritance... Moreover,
when faith ceases to pray it ceases to
live.
Faith
does the
impossible because it lets God undertake for us, and nothing is
impossible with God... Only God can move mountains, but faith and prayer
move God... Faith in Christ is the basis of all working and all
praying. All wonderful works depend on wonderful praying, and all
praying is done in the name of Jesus Christ... All other conditions are
of little value. Everything else is given up except Jesus. The name of
Christ -- the Person of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ -- must be
supremely sovereign in the hour of prayer." E. M. Bounds
"The first thing Jesus teaches His disciples is that they must have a
secret place of prayer. Jesus says, 'And when you pray, go
into your closet..." Every one must have a solitary spot where he can
be alone with his God...
That spot may be anywhere. It may change from day to day if we have to
change our abode... There alone, but there most surely, Jesus comes to
us to teach us to pray... The first thing in this closet-prayer is: I
must meet my Father. The light that shines in the closet must be the
light of the Father's countenance. The fresh air from heaven with which
Jesus would have it filled, the atmosphere in which I am to breathe and
pray, is God's Father-love, God's infinite Fatherliness. Thus each
thought or petition we breathe out will be simple, hearty, childlike
trust in the Father. This is how the Master teaches us to pray. He
brings us into the Father's
living presence." Andrew Murray
"Upright
Christians pray without ceasing. Though they pray not always with their
mouths, yet their hearts pray continually, whether asleep or awake, for
the sigh of the true Christian is a prayer." Martin Luther
"The power of the Church to truly bless rests on intercession -- asking
and receiving heavenly gifts to carry to men. Because this is so, it
is no wonder that where we put our
trust in our own
diligence and effort, and work more than pray, the presence and power
of God are not seen in our work as we would wish... It is difficult to
conceive how much we ourselves and the Church will gain if, with our
whole heart, we accept the post of honor God is offering us when He
calls us to the ministry of intercession." Andrew Murray
"We live is a day characterized by the multiplication of man's
machinery and the diminution of God's power. The great cry of our day
is work, work, work; organize, organize, organize; give us some new
society, tell us some new methods, devise some new machinery. But the
great need of our day is prayer, more prayer and better
prayer." R. A. Torrey 
"Prayer is not overcoming God's reluctance, it is laying hold of God's willingness." Richard Trench
"'There are moments when, whatever be the attitude or position of the
body, the soul is on its knees.' Prayer, then, is an attitude of the
heart that humbles itself before the living God, silently declaring to
Him, 'I Need Thee." Victor Hugo / Dick Eastman
"The
heart of an effective witness is devotion to Jesus Christ. This
devotion finds its greatest expression in prayer. It is kept alive
through the continual practice of prayer." William Krutza
"In
Ephesians 3:20, Paul seeks to express the inexhaustible potential of
prayer: "Now to Him that is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all
we ask or think, according to the power that is at work in us." The
power that works in and through our prayers is the Holy Spirit... There
is indeed only one limit to God's omnipotence and that is
God's eternal righteousness. Fasting will never change the righteous
standards of God. If something is outside the will of God, fasting will
never put it inside the will of God. If it is wrong and sinful, it is
still wrong and sinful no matter how long a person may fast.
There is an example of this in II Samuel chapter 12. David committed
adultery. Out of this a child born. God said that part of the judgment
was that the child would die. David fasted for seven days, but the
child still died. Fasting seven days did not change God's righteous
judgment on David's sinful act. If a thing is wrong, fasting will not
make it right. Nothing will do that. Fasting is neither a gimmick nor a
cure-all. God does not deal in such things. God has made full
provision for the total well-being of
His people in every area of their lives -- spiritual, physical and
material. Fasting is one part of this total provision. Fasting is not a
substitute for any other part of God's provision. Conversely, no other
part of God's provision is a substitute for fasting." Derek Prince
May the Master, as Murray states, "teach us to pray" and "bring us into the Father's living presence."
