Prayer Is Never a Substitute for Obedience

By A. W. Tozer

Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into
the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father
which is in heaven.  Matthew 7:2.1

    Have you noticed how much praying for revival has
been going on of late - - and how little revival has resulted?

    I believe our problem is that we have been trying to
substitute praying for obeying, and it simply will not
work!

    A church, for instance, follows its traditions without
much thought about whether they are scriptural or not.
Or it surrenders to pressure from public opinion and
falls in with popular trends which carry it far from the
New Testament pattern. Then the leaders notice a lack
of spiritual power among the people and become
concerned about it. What to do? How can they bring
down refreshing showers to quicken their fainting souls?

    The answer is all ready for them. The books tell them
how - - pray!

    The passing evangelist confirms what the books have
said - - pray!

    So the pastor calls his people to pray. The tide of
feeling runs high and it looks for a while as if the revival
might be on the way. But it fails to arrive and the zeal for
prayer begins to flag. Soon the church is back where it
was before and a numb discouragement settles over
everyone.

    What has gone wrong? Simply this: Neither the
leaders nor the people have made any effort to obey the
Word of God. They felt that their only weakness was
failure to pray, when actually in a score of ways they
were falling short in the vital matter of obedience!
--------------------------------------------------------------

Yours in Christ,
Paul N. F.