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!
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    Yours in Christ,
    Paul N. F.