20 March, 2023 20:41

The following article is solid food for the soul. I trust it will bless, inspire and provoke you to pray even more.

Blessings.

YOU CANNOT FIND A BIGGER JOB

By Francis John Perryman

Christian literature is agreed upon one thing; that the greatest and most difficult task in the world is to pray, which may be the chief reason why so many Christians fail to really do it. They agree that it is necessary, they agree that it accomplishes something, they agree and even applaud theories advanced in its support, but to a large extent they stop there.

And here is the pity and tragedy of it -both they and the world are the poorer because of it, especially the world. People have often asked me to write about prayer, but I hesitate. After over forty years of being “driven to pray” – I think it has been as literal as that, mostly -the bit I know is infinitesimal, while what can be known must be infinite. So anything I say here merely skims the surface, and the biggest thing that I could say would still leave you with propositions and problems which the most well informed and facile writer could not elucidate. Nevertheless, pray: and go on praying: never stop praying; never give up praying; and never think that you know all that it can do. Pray about anything and everything and on your knees, you will discover the reality of the unseen and what no theories teach or words explain. Prayer- not saying prayers- but prayers which originate in God and by the activity of His nature laying hold of the implications of the Cross and administering them – that praying defies analysis. Baffles the intellect, transcends reason, flings aside theories, makes common sense nonsense, the most unlikely thing a possibility, the unexpected a glorious surprise, and the fruits of Calvary the present possessions of anyone who is “in Christ.”

But pause for a moment. We cannot have dominion in a fallen world unless we are linked to Omnipotence. So how do we arrive there – into that Estate and its Administration? I will tell you. It is all “in Christ” and it is ours through His Finished Work.

By His Cross, Christ arrested and abolished our impotence and paralysis and by “a new and living way” (see Hebrews 10, 19-22 linked with Ephes. 2, 18) created an eternal highway into His Omnipotence, His Sovereignty, His Dominion. So the one who prays embraces Omnipotence – Almightiness. When Jesus said, “I am The Way, The Truth, and The Life” He was interpreting the fact and implications of His Cross. He did not say I am A way, but THE Way, and so added, “No man cometh to the father but by Me”. Underline that. Why do I say this? Because in practice it is one of the easiest things -and perilous things too – to have a human experience substituted for a Divine fact. The peril is that you rely upon an “it” – a “thing” – instead of upon Him. That is fatal. You may not do it deliberately, but like the deceiver that he is the devil lures you unconsciously away from a Divine unalterable fact and certainly to a fluctuating experience with all the variations of moods and emotions. You feel like praying and you do it. Then something may happen to rob you of those feelings; and if you are not properly anchored in Christ, the finger of the accuser (the devil) will point at you, muzzle and paralyze you, and with all the attendant miseries and calamities, you will probably stop praying. Have none of that! It is a ghastly mistake to suppose that you have no right to pray because you have “slipped up”. But hosts of Christians do that, and so are absent of dumb at prayer time. The devil laughs at that, because for the time being he has succeeded in robbing believers of using those Redemptive powers which enrage his anger, release his captives, overthrow his government, and enforce his doom. So settle it once for all that no matter what you feel like, good or bad, there is only one basis upon which you can gain and sustain access to God and that is The Finished Work of Christ. “Through Him,” writes Paul in Eph. 2, 18, “we…have access by one Spirit unto the Father.” Access to God! It is terrific, but it is true. Dare to get it – through Christ and dare to believe that you can always have it, through Him. Hallelujah! Back to the heart of God through the Cross, so that at any moment in all circumstances I can have immediate access to and audience with God, my Father, King of kings and Lord of lords, and through Him to the world. Here is the sphere that the Cross has now thrown open to all who will come by The Way – Christ. And it is here that we surmount the problems of time and travel, distance and space, language and caste, ignorance and learning, opposition and prejudice, deceit and defiance, frustration and perplexity, indifference and challenge, and any other human, material or Satanic obstacle you care to name. All are ironed out by Christ through His Cross and in union with Him the” impossible” is my range as well as His. Where He goes, I can go. What He does I can do. His concerns are mine, and so far as I know there are no limitations. Moreover, all God’s promises have to be mediated in Christ through us. Have a look at 2 Cor. 1, 20, and not those words “through us” (not “by” but dia “through”) Not through angels, but through us – the Redeemed. What a Gospel! What a life! What a calling! What a commission! The Christian life has nothing to do with the possible, but the impossible. It is another world, another sphere, another order, another law. Especially is this so far to the one who prays, for the Cross has not only made free access to God, but inspired contact with man. Through Christ there is a bloodstained track for us to the heart of everyone everywhere. Do you know that! If you act on that in faith you can traverse continents, invade nations, embrace the ages, and make history, by bringing into manifestation the programme of God. That is the business of faith and its functions through prayer. If not, the disciples could never have prayed “Thy Kingdom Come. Thy will be done on earth.”

Think again has it never occurred to you that the man who prays can marshal the bigger congregation in the smallest possible time. Distance is nothing. Language is nothing. Human accessibility is nothing. The cables of eternity are laid via the Cross through Christ to the heart of every man, and the man who dares to pray for all men everywhere, has discovered a line of communication that supersedes all other human activity. You may preach to the largest congregation that any building can accommodate, and be relayed beyond, but there are limitations. You may broadcast beyond local and national boundaries but there has to be a receiving instrument and listeners at the other end, or your labor is in vain. Beside all this there are the barriers of language and intellect. The most forceful and eloquent is just waste unless you are understood. You may write books, but are restricted by circulation and translation.

But not so with prayer. Prayer leaps all these limitations, brushes aside obstacles, and “gets there”- quicker than lightning, faster than sound. Yes, it is more wonderful than that. God liquidates common sense, silences reasoning, rules out logic and demonstrates His almightiness by making miraculous an everyday affair. Else what do you make of Isaiah 65, 24, where God says, “Before they call I will answer”. What a blessing that He anticipates not only our needs but our prayers. Praying people can tell you of answers that must have been on the way before they put their requests into words. Wonderful did I say? No. It is the Divine order; the natural sequence of union with Christ and co-operation with God; the big business of being linked with God in world purposes; not the mere personal and local and retail but the wholesale and universal through what Paul describes as being “called into fellowship of God’s Son.” That is Bible. That is Calvary. That is God’s will and that is Christianity in action.

Is it not about time that we discover that everybody else is as important and precious to God as we are? The world! The world! The world! My friends. “God so loved the world…” Christ did not die to purchase and gather out a bouquet of believers, His Cross embraced the world, so that all who will may come to Him. It is whosoever, wheresoever, whensoever, howsoever – everyone, everywhere, all the time. Think then, what a field of activity is open. We want to be used. Here is our chance. We want a sense of accomplishment? Nothing produces it so adequately as praying. This does not mean that preaching is unnecessary. It is, very. And every opening by The Spirit should be grasped with the urgency of a life and death issue. But while few can preach, all can pray; and accomplish more that way. Pray out of Living Union with Christ, challenge the wreck and ruin of the Fall, and claim the enforcement of God’s Eternal purpose in His Cross, and you at once embrace the Universe.

You long to reach people, talk to them, convince them, enlighten them, tell them what you know, help them, save them? Very well, prayer does all that. The pray-er has the biggest and most effective job in the universe. He can marshal the hosts of God wherever they are needed. He can penetrate the secret sessions of satanic schemers, ‘blow” upon their plans, and claim the death-sentence of the Cross upon all Godless government. ( see John 17, 4, 19, 30, then 1 Cor. 3,21-23. Ephs. 6, 10-13. Psalms 2; 97 and 99. Isaiah 9, 6-7, Daniel 2,44;7, 27. Rev. 7, 9-17. 21,1-8)If you have never started to move behind the iron curtains of governments and satanic conspiracy, do it now. If you have never invaded the ages, do it now. Say, “Lord I will be a worker with Thee in Thy Universe; take me out in spirit and in faith to share Thy counsels, grasp Thy eternities, and embrace the exploits of Thy kingdom.”

No man who moves into the reaches of the Cross and embraces hemispheres and nations in prayer will clamor for the sweets and prizes of platforms and pulpit. The verdict is inescapable, you cannot find a bigger job than praying. At any moment of the day or night you can get the whole race into your congregation, and eventually you will find yourself in the faith realm of having to “say” as well as pray what shall happen. ( Matt. 21,21, Mark 11,23; Luke 17, 6; 2Cor. 10, 5,6) But that is another story. And you learn these things by doing them.

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