Quote from Forum Archives on October 17, 2003, 9:20 am

Posted by: masinick <masinick@...>

Dear friends,

We've been discussing attitudes in the majority of the recent
collection of messages. In today's message, Oswald Chambers
writes about the great work of prayer. I believe that prayer is
powerful because it is one of our connections to the God who is
(another major connection is His Word, the Bible, from which His
Word is spoken and recorded for us to read). Through prayer and
the written Word, we realize that all power comes from God.
Finding this realization, we draw near to Him, and then we see
His work.

Precious Lord, please help each of us to cling to You, confess
and repent of judgmental attitudes, to restore ourselves with an
attitude of love toward You that spills out and overflows to
others.

Yours in Christ,
Brian

October 17

The Key of the Greater Work

... I say to you, he who believes in Me, ... greater works
than these he will do, because I go to My Father --John 14:12

Prayer does not equip us for greater works-- prayer is the
greater work. Yet we think of prayer as some commonsense
exercise of our higher powers that simply prepares us for God's
work. In the teachings of Jesus Christ, prayer is the working of
the miracle of redemption in me, which produces the miracle of
redemption in others, through the power of God. The way fruit
remains firm is through prayer, but remember that it is prayer
based on the agony of Christ in redemption, not on my own agony.
We must go to God as His child, because only a child gets his
prayers answered; a "wise" man does not (see Matthew 11:25 ).

Prayer is the battle, and it makes no difference where you are.
However God may engineer your circumstances, your duty is to
pray. Never allow yourself this thought, "I am of no use where I
am," because you certainly cannot be used where you have not yet
been placed. Wherever God has placed you and whatever your
circumstances, you should pray, continually offering up prayers
to Him. And He promises, "Whatever you ask in My name, that I
will do ..." ( John 14:13 ). Yet we refuse to pray unless it
thrills or excites us, which is the most intense form of
spiritual selfishness. We must learn to work according to God's
direction, and He says to pray. "Pray the Lord of the harvest to
send out laborers into His harvest" ( Matthew 9:38 ).

There is nothing thrilling about a laboring person's work, but
it is the laboring person who makes the ideas of the genius
possible. And it is the laboring saint who makes the ideas of
his Master possible. When you labor at prayer, from God's
perspective there are always results. What an astonishment it
will be to see, once the veil is finally lifted, all the souls
that have been reaped by you, simply because you have been in
the habit of taking your orders from Jesus Christ.

Authorized By The Oswald Chambers Publications Association, Ltd.

My Utmost for His Highest Daily Devotional is provided by RBC
Ministries (c) 2003 RBC Ministries-Grand Rapids MI, 49555-0001

Oswald Chambers was born in Scotland and spent much of his
boyhood there. His ministry of teaching and preaching took him
for a time to the United States and Japan. The last six years of
his life were spent as principal of the Bible Training College
in London, and as a chaplain to the British Commonwealth troops
in Egypt during World War I. After his death, the books which
bear his name were compiled by his wife from her own verbatim
shorthand notes of his talks.

www.gospelcom.net/rbc/utmost/

=====
--
Brian Masinick, mailto:masinick@yahoo.com
Home page: www.geocities.com/masinick/

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