Thoughts for Life: #120 We Are Most Godlike When we Share God's Travail

Dr. Wesley L. Duewel: Our prayer travail, prayer groaning, and prayer agony can never compare with that of our Savior, but we have not followed Christ very closely or very far if we do not know in our own prayer experience times of deep prayer burden, prayer wrestling, and even perhaps prayer agony. Google image, Praying hands)

Said Martin Luther, "I question if any believer can have the burden of souls upon him—a passion for souls—and not agonize in prayer." (Unknown Christian, Kneeling Christian, 85)

Charles Finney states,

"Doubtless one great reason why God requires the exercise of this agonizing prayer is that it forms such a bond of union between Christ and the church. It creates such a sympathy between them. It is as if Christ comes and pours the overflowings of His own benevolent heart into His people, and leads them to sympathize and cooperate with Him as they never do in any other way." (Finney, Principles of Prayer,39)

Yes, perhaps you are never more Christlike than when you are prevailing in prayer wrestling and prayer agony. Perhaps nothing endears you more to His heart than when you thus share His love, compassion, and burden for the world He longs so infinitely to save.

Prayer groaning and prayer agony also make you unusually one with the Holy Spirit. It makes you more like Him also. The Spirit is equally as infinite in His longing and burden as the Son of God is in interceding on Heaven's throne.

The phrases "wrestling in prayer," "agonizing in prayer," and "working hard in prayer" were common in the vocabulary of the early church. Paul told the Colossians, "Since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you" (Col. 1:9). He added, "I want you to know how much I am struggling for you" (2:2; lit., "how great an agony I have on behalf of you").

Today our prayer life is so weak and our passion for Christ and souls is so lacking that we have lost words such as these from our conversation and even from our sermons. They sound like foreign concepts to us and almost sound like fanaticism! What a commentary on the low level of our prayer lives!

There is no more sacred or practical way to follow Jesus, daily taking up your cross, than in daily wrestling intercession. You will have to deny yourself of some other things in order to have time for such prayer.

Take your choice. Will you follow Jesus closely in intercession till the Spirit teaches you the secrets of prevailing prayer, or will you disappoint your Lord?

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Used by permission of the author and Duewel Literature Trust, Inc., Greenwood, Indiana, (with Jean's impressions added)

Mighty Prevailing Prayer

#120 We are Most Godlike When we Share God's Travail
by Dr. Wesley L. Duewel
(pp. 225 - 228) Zondervan

The highest expression of man

Prayer-

Father, one reason why You desire us to exercise agonizing prayer is that it tends to form a bond between Christ and His Body, the church.
It will create sympathy among us, as then Christ can pour in His own heart's desires.
This will help us sympathize and cooperate with His Spirit, as
there is found no better or more sacred way to follow Jesus than to take up our cross and partake in wrestling prayer.
Lord, help us be willing to give the time for such prayer!
I ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Today's Bible verses-

(Ps. 40:8 KJV) "I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart."

(Ps. 119:126 a KJV) "It's time for thee, LORD, to work."

(Col. 3:23 KJV) "And whatsoever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not unto men."

Today's quote-

~ Andrew Murray- "The true heart is nothing but true consecration, the spirit that longs to live wholly for God, that gladly gives up everything that it may live wholly for Him, and that above all yields up the heart, as the key of the life, into His keeping. and rule." (p. 7 in the Herald of His Coming, June 2017)

Today's questions-

Do stressful situations cripple you? Do you blame others, God or yourself for them happening? Do you feel hopeless to handle them?

It's not about you, who to blame or how you got there. The power of setting things straight lies in God. He knows all about them, He has answers for you, and He will help you, if you'll ask Him.

The power of God can be revealed in your situation, and you'll find that He's not finished creating faith in you through it. Let your inner man see what God's up to, as He has a strategy to bless you in His plans for you, and to bring Him glory for how it turns out!