Abide In Christ - Day 21 - So You Will Have Power In Prayer

Abide in Christ by Andrew Murray

Day 21

So You Will Have Power in Prayer

“If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you.” (John 15:7)

PRAYER is both one of the means and one of the fruits of union with Christ. As a means, it is of unspeakable importance. All the actions of faith, all the pleadings of desire, all the yearnings for a fuller surrender, all the confessions of shortcoming and of sin, all the exercises in which the soul gives up self and clings to Christ, find their utterance in prayer. In each meditation on Abiding in Christ, as some new feature of what Scripture teaches concerning this blessed life is grasped, the first impulse of the believer is at once to look up to the Father and pour out his heart to Him, and ask from Him the full understanding and the full possession of what he has been shown in the word. Yet it is the believer who is not content with this spontaneous expression of his hope, but who takes time in secret prayer to wait until he has received and laid hold of what he has seen, who will really grow strong in Christ. However feeble the soul's first abiding, its prayer will be heard, and that soul will find prayer one of the great means of abiding more abundantly.

But it is not so much as a means, but as a fruit of the abiding, that the Savior mentions it in the Parable of the Vine. He does not think so much of prayer — as we, alas! too exclusively do — as a means of getting blessing for ourselves, but as one of the chief channels of influence by which, through us as fellow-workers with God, the blessings of Christ's redemption are to be dispensed to the world. He sets before Himself and us the glory of the Father, in the extension of His kingdom, as the object for which we have been made branches; and He assures us that if we only abide in Him, we will be like Jacob when his name was changed to Israel (which means having power with God and man). Ours shall be the effective, fervent prayer of the righteous man, availing much, like Elijah's for ungodly Israel (James 15:16-17). Such prayer will be the fruit of our abiding in Him, and the means of bringing forth much fruit.

To the Christian who is not abiding wholly in Jesus, the difficulties connected with prayer are often so great as to rob him of the comfort and the strength it could bring. Under the guise of humility, he asks how one so unworthy could expect to have influence with the Holy One. He thinks of God's sovereignty, His perfect wisdom and love, and cannot see how his prayer can really have any distinct effect. He prays, but it is more because he cannot rest without prayer, than from a loving faith that the prayer will be heard. But what a blessed release from such questions and perplexities is given to the soul who is truly abiding in Christ! He realizes increasingly how it is in the real spiritual unity with Christ that we are accepted and heard. The union with the Son of God is a life union: we are in very deed one with Him — our prayer ascends as His prayer. It is because we abide in Him that we can ask what we will, and it is given to us.

There are many reasons why this must be so. One is, that abiding in Christ, and having His words abiding in us, teach us to pray in accordance with the will of God. With the abiding in Christ, our self-will is kept down, the thoughts and wishes of nature are brought into captivity to the thoughts and wishes of Christ; like-mindedness to Christ grows upon us — all our working and willing become transformed into harmony with His. There is deep and frequently renewed heart-searching to see whether the surrender has indeed been an entire one. There is fervent prayer to the heart-searching Spirit so that nothing may be kept back. Everything is yielded to the power of His life in us, that it may exercise its sanctifying influence even on ordinary wishes and desires. His Holy Spirit breathes through our whole being...and without our being conscious how, our desires, as the breathings of the Divine life, conform with the Divine will and are fulfilled. Abiding in Christ renews and sanctifies the will. We ask what we will, and it is given to us.

In close connection with this is the thought, that the abiding in Christ teaches the believer in prayer only to seek the glory of God. In promising to answer prayer, Christ's one thought is this, "that the Father may be glorified in the Son” (John 14:13). In His intercession on earth (see John 17), this was His one desire and plea. In His intercession in heaven, it is still His great object. As the believer abides in Christ, the Savior breathes this desire into him. The thought, “Only for the Glory Of God”, becomes more and more the keynote of the life hidden in Christ. At first this subdues, quiets, and makes the soul almost afraid to dare entertain a wish, lest it should not be to the Father's glory. But when once its supremacy has been accepted, and everything yielded to it, it comes with mighty power to elevate and enlarge the heart, and open it to the vast field open to the glory of God. Abiding in Christ, the soul learns not only to desire, but to spiritually discern what will be for God's glory. And one of the first conditions of acceptable prayer is fulfilled in it when, as the fruit of its union with Christ, the whole mind is brought into harmony with that of the Son as He said: "Father, glorify Your name" (John 12:28).

Once more: Abiding in Christ, we can fully avail ourselves of the name of Christ. Asking in the name of another means that that other authorized me and sent me to ask, and wants to be considered as asking himself. He wants the favor done to him. Believers often try to think of the name of Jesus and His merits, and to argue themselves into the faith that they will be heard, while they painfully feel how little they have of the faith in His name. They are not living wholly in Jesus' name; it is only when they begin to pray that they want to take up that name and use it. This cannot be. The promise, "Whatever you ask in my name," may not be severed from the command, "Whatever ye do... do all in the name of the Lord Jesus” (Col. 3:17). If the name of Christ is to be wholly at my disposal so that I may have the full command of it for all I desire, it must be because I first put myself wholly at His disposal, so that He has free and full command of me. It is the abiding in Christ that gives the right and power to use His name with confidence. To Christ the Father refuses nothing. As I abide in Christ, I come to the Father as one with Him. His righteousness is in me. His Spirit is in me. The Father sees the Son in me, and grants to me my petition. It is not — as so many think — by a sort of imputation that the Father looks upon us as if we were in Christ, though we are not in Him. No...the Father wants to see us living in Him. In this way, our prayer will really have power to prevail. Abiding in Christ not only renews our will to pray rightly, but secures the full power of His merits to us.

Again: Abiding in Christ also works in us the faith which alone can obtain an answer. "According to your faith be it unto you" (Matt. 9:29). This is one of the laws of the kingdom. "Believe that you receive them...and you will have them” (Mark 11:24). This faith rests upon and is rooted in the Word, yet it is something infinitely higher than the mere logical conclusion of “God has promised, so I will obtain.” No - faith, as a spiritual act, depends upon the words abiding in us as living powers, and abiding upon the state of our whole inner life. Without fasting and prayer (Mark 9:29), without humility and a spiritual mind (John 5:44), without a whole-hearted obedience (1 John 3:22), there cannot be this living faith. But as the soul abides in Christ, and grows into the consciousness of its union with Him, and sees how entirely it is He who makes it and its petition acceptable, this soul dares to claim an answer because it knows itself to be one with Him. It was by faith that it learned to abide in Him. As the fruit of that faith, it rises to a greater faith in all that God has promised to be and to do. It learns to breathe its prayers in the deep, quiet, confident assurance: “We know we have the petition we ask of Him” (1 John 5:15).

In addition to this, abiding in Christ keeps us in the place where the answer can be bestowed. Some believers pray earnestly for blessing, but when God comes and looks for them to bless them, they are not to be found. They never thought that the blessing must not only be asked, but waited for, and received in prayer. Abiding in Christ is the place for receiving answers. Outside of Him, the answer would be dangerous - we would consume it on our own lusts (James 4:3). Many of the richest answers - for example, for spiritual grace, or for power to work and to bless — can only come in the shape of a larger experience of what God makes Christ to us. The fullness is In Him. Abiding in Him is the condition of power in prayer, because the answer is treasured up and bestowed in Him.

Believer, abide in Christ, for there is the school of prayer - mighty, effective, answer-bringing prayer. Abide in Him, and you will learn what to so many is a mystery: That the secret of the prayer of faith is the life of faith — the life that abides in Christ alone.