Intensity of Prayer

[Coconut]

Not Just Intensity of Prayer

He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him. --John 14:21

Intensity of prayer is no criterion of its effectiveness.

A man may throw himself on his face and sob out his troubles to the Lord and yet have no intention to obey the commandments of Christ. Strong emotion and tears may be no more than the outcropping of a vexed spirit, evidence of stubborn resistance to God's known will....

No matter what I write here, thousands of pastors will continue to call their people to prayer in the forlorn hope that God will finally relent and send revival if only His people wear themselves out in intercession. To such people God must indeed appear to be a hard taskmaster, for the years pass and the young get old and the aged die and still no help comes. The prayer meeting room becomes a wailing wall and the lights burn long, and still the rains tarry.

Has God forgotten to be gracious? Let any reader begin to obey and he will have the answer.

-A. W. Tozer

"Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him" (John 14:21).

James 5:16 The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.

 

[Faithful Son]

I agree with this message. Intensity and even the expression of prayer does not matter.

But what matters to God, I believe, is perseverance. I read a book about prayer the other day, by a well known preacher of the 1800's, but I can't remember his name now.

He used to have a place, a room, below his church where people were praying for his church and for the church members, I can't remember exactly, but I think they prayed the whole day, in shifts.

That's perseverance.

God bless

 

[Chad]

This is a great devotional sister. Tozer is great and very honest, down to the core of truth of GOD. I never necessary looke at prayer this way (obedience), but more prayer in crying out sincerely for the strength in Christ to be obedient and well, Christ like in all I do.

GOD bless

 

[jiggyfly]

Amen Coconut, Faithful Son and Chad. We might be able to fool other people but we can't fool Father with emotional exhibition.

Here's an excerpt from an article by Leonard Ravenhill

The Church began in the Spirit; now She is operating in the flesh. There is no pillar of fire over the sanctuary. There are no preachers who can hold the hell-bound spell-bound. I am not sure that it can be proved that Nero fiddled while Rome burned. It can be proved that the Church is fiddling while the world is burning! The one reason that we do not have revival today is that we are content to live without it.


O for a generation of believers who can honestly say,
"The Zeal of Thine house hath eaten me up."

 

[BorrowedID]

Thanks for posting the Tozer quote. I'm reminded that the intensity of our prayer isn't a means for moving an inattentive
God, but rather about digging into ourselves in order to pray
as truthfully as possible.