MURRAY - With Christ in the School of Prayer (Annotated) (All About Prayer)

WITH CHRIST

In the School of Prayer

Thoughts on Our Training

for the

Ministry of Intercession

BY

REV. ANDREW MURRAY

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WITH CHRIST

In the School of Prayer

Thoughts on Our Training

for the

Ministry of Intercession

BY

REV. ANDREW MURRAY

Lord, teach us to pray.

NEW YORK CHICAGO TORONTO

Fleming H. Revell Company

Publishers of Evangelical Literature.

PREFACE.

-----0-----

f all the promises connected with the command, 'ABIDE IN ME,' there is none

higher, and none that sooner brings the confession, 'Not that I have already

attained, or am already made perfect,' than this: 'If ye abide in me , ask whatsoever ye will,

and it shall be done unto you. ' Power with God is the highest attainment of the life of full

abiding.

O

And of all the traits of a life LIKE CHRIST there is none higher and more glorious

than conformity to Him in the work that now engages Him without ceasing in the

Father's presence--His all-prevailing intercession. The more we abide in Him, and grow

unto His likeness, will His priestly life work in us mightily, and our life become what

His is, a life that ever pleads and prevails for men.

'Thou hast made us kings and priests unto God.' Both in the king and the priest

the chief thing is power, influence, blessing. In the king it is the power coming

downward; in the priest, the power rising upward, prevailing with God. In our blessed

Priest-King, Jesus Christ, the kingly power is founded on the priestly ' He is abl e to save

to the uttermost , becaus e He ever liveth to make intercession.' In us, His priests and

kings, it is no otherwise: it is in intercession that the Church is to find and wield its

highest power, that each member of the Church is to prove his descent from Israel, who

as a prince had power with God and with men, and prevailed.

It is under a deep impression that the place and power of prayer in the Christian

life is too little understood, that this book has been written. I feel sure that as long as we

look on prayer chiefly as the means of maintaining our own Christian life, we shall not

know fully what it is meant to be. But when we learn to regard it as the highest part of

the work entrusted to us, the root and strength of all other work, we shall see that there

is nothing that we so need to study and practise as the art of praying aright. If I have at

all succeeded in pointing out the progressive teaching of our Lord in regard to prayer,

and the distinct reference the wonderful promises of the last night (John xiv. 16) have to

the works we are to do in His Name, to the greater works, and to the bearing much

fruit, we shall all admit that it is only when the Church gives herself up to this holy

work of intercession that we can expect the power of Christ to manifest itself in her

behalf. It is my prayer that God may use this little book to make clearer to some of His

children the wonderful place of power and influence which He is waiting for them to

occupy, and for which a weary world is waiting too.

In connection with this there is another truth that has come to me with

wonderful clearness as I studied the teaching of Jesus on prayer. It is this: that the

Father waits to hear every prayer of faith, to give us whatsoever we will, and

whatsoever we ask in Jesus' name. We have become so accustomed to limit the

wonderful love and the large promises of our God, that we cannot read the simplest

and clearest statements of our Lord without the qualifying clauses by which we guard

and expound them. If there is one thing I think the Church needs to learn, it is that God

means prayer to have an answer, and that it hath not entered into the heart of man to

conceive what God will do for His child who gives himself to believe that his prayer

will be heard . God hears prayer ; this is a truth universally admitted, but of which very

few understand the meaning, or experience the power. If what I have written stir my

reader to go to the Master's words, and take His wondrous promises simply and

literally as they stand, my object has been attained.

And then just one thing more. Thousands have in these last years found an

unspeakable blessing in learning how completely Christ is our life, and how He

undertakes to be and to do all in us that we need. I know not if we have yet learned to

apply this truth to our prayer-life. Many complain that they have not the power to pray

in faith, to pray the effectual prayer that availeth much. The message I would fain bring

them is that the blessed Jesus is waiting, is longing, to teach them this. Christ is our life:

in heaven He ever liveth to pray; His life in us is an ever-praying life, if we will but trust

Him for it. Christ teaches us to pray not only by example, by instruction, by command,

by promises, bu t by showing u s HIMSELF , the ever-living Intercessor, as our Life . It is when

we believe this, and go and abide in Him for our prayer-life too, that our fears of not

being able to pray aright will vanish, and we shall joyfully and triumphantly trust our

Lord to teach us to pray, to be Himself the life and the power of our prayer. May God

open our eyes to see what the holy ministry of intercession is to which, as His royal

priesthood, we have been set apart. May He give us a large and strong heart to believe

what mighty influence our prayers can exert. And may all fear as to our being able to

fulfil our vocation vanish as we see Jesus, living ever to pray, living in us to pray, and

standing surety for our prayer-life.

ANDREW MURRAY

WELLINGTON, 2 th Octobe r 1895

Table of Contents

PREFACE................................................................................................................................. 3

Table of Contents ..................................................................................................................... 5

FIRST LESSON......................................................................................................................... 8

'Lord, teach us to pray; ' .......................................................................................................... 8

Or, The Only Teache r ............................................................................................................ 8

SECOND LESSON................................................................................................................. 12

'In spirit and truth. ' ............................................................................................................. 12

Or, The True Worshippers . ................................................................................................. 12

THIRD LESSON..................................................................................................................... 15

'Pray to thy Father, which is in secret; ' .............................................................................. 15