GENERALLY,

    WE PRAY ONLY AS WELL AS WE LIVE

 

    By A. W. Tozer

    If I regard iniquity in my heart,

    the Lord will not hear me. Psalm 66:18

        Prayer at its best is the expression of the total life,

    for all things else being equal, our prayers are only as

    powerful as our lives.

        In the long pull, we pray only as well as we live!

        Some prayers are like a fire escape, used only in

    times of critical emergency --- never very enjoyable,

    but used as a way of terrified escape from disaster.

    They do not represent the regular life of the one

    who offers them; rather, they are the unusual and

    uncommon acts of the spiritual amateur.

        Most of us in moments of stress have wished that we

    had lived so that prayer would not be so unnatural to us

    and have regretted that we had not cultivated prayer to

    the point where it would be as easy and as natural as

    breathing.

        No Christian wants to live his whole life on an

    emergency level. As we go on into God we shall see

    excellency of the life of constant communion where all

    thoughts and acts are prayers, and the entire life

    becomes one holy sacrifice of prayer and worship!

 

       To pray effectively it is required of us that there be

    no unblessed areas in our lives, no parts of the mind or

    soul that are not inhabited by the Spirit, no impure

    desires allowed to live within us, no disparity between

    our prayers and our conduct.

 

        Undoubtedly the redemption in Christ Jesus has

    sufficient moral power to enable us to live in a state of

    purity and love, where our whole life will be a prayer! 

---

    Yours in Christ,

    Paul N. F.