HOW
TO PRAY
R.
A. TORREY
CHAPTER
VII
ABIDING
IN CHRIST
"If
you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you shall
ask what you will, and it shall be done unto you." (John 15:7) The whole
secret of prayer is found in these words of our Lord. Here is prayer that has
unbounded power: "Ask WHAT YOU WILL, and it shall
be done unto you."
There
is a way then of asking and getting precisely what we ask and getting all we
ask. Christ gives two conditions of this all-prevailing prayer:
1.
The first condition is, "If you abide in Me."
What
is it to abide in Christ?
Some
explanations that have been given of this are so mystical or so profound that
to many simple-minded children of God they mean practically nothing at all; but
what Jesus meant was really very simple.
He
had been comparing Himself to a vine, His disciples to the branches in the
vine. Some branches continued in the vine, that is, remained in living union
with the vine, so that the sap or life of the vine constantly flowed into these
branches. They had no independent life of their own. Everything in them was
simply the outcome of the life of the vine flowing into them. Their buds, their
leaves, their blossoms, their fruit, were really not theirs, but the buds, leaves,
blossoms and fruit of the vine. Other branches were completely severed from the
vine, or else the flow of the sap or life of the vine into them was in some way
hindered. Now for us to abide
in Christ is for us to bear the same relation to Him that the first sort of
branches bear to the vine; that is to say, to abide in Christ is to renounce
any independent life of our own, to give up trying to think our thoughts, or
form our resolutions, or cultivate our feelings, and simply and constantly look
to Christ to think His thoughts in us, to form His purposes in us, to feel
His emotions and affections in us. It is to renounce all life independent of
Christ, and constantly to look to Him for the inflow of His life into us, and
the outworking of His life through us. When we do this, and in so far as we do
this, our prayers will obtain that which we seek from God.
This
must necessarily be so, for our desires will not be our own desires, but
Christ's, and our prayers will not in reality be our own prayers, but Christ
praying in us. Such prayers will always be in harmony with God's will, and the Father heareth Him always. When our prayers fail it is because
they are indeed our prayers. We have conceived the desire and framed the
petition of ourselves, instead of looking to Christ to pray through us.
To
say that one should be abiding in Christ in all his prayers, looking to Christ
to pray through Him rather than praying himself, is simply saying in another
way that one should pray "in the Spirit." When we thus abide in
Christ, our thoughts are not our own thoughts, but His, our joys are not our
own joys, but His, our fruit is not our own fruit, but His; just as the buds,
leaves, blossoms and fruit of the branch that abides in the vine are not the
buds, leaves, blossoms and fruit of the branch, but of the vine itself whose
life is flowing into the branch and manifests itself in these buds, leaves,
blossoms and fruit.
To
abide in Christ, one must of course already be in Christ through the acceptance
of Christ as an atoning Savior from the guilt of sin,
a risen Savior from the power of sin, and a Lord and
Master over all his life. Being in Christ, all that we have to do to abide (or
continue) in Christ is simply to renounce our self-life--utterly renouncing
every thought, every purpose, every desire, every affection of our own, and
just looking day by day and hour by hour for Jesus Christ to form His thoughts,
His purposes, His affections, His desires in us. Abiding in Christ is really a
very simple matter, though it is a wonderful life of privilege and of power.
2.
But there is another condition stated in this verse, though it is really
involved in the first: "And My words abide in you."
If
we are to obtain from God all that we ask from Him, Christ's words must abide
or continue in us. We must study His words, fairly devour His words, let them
sink into our thought and into our heart, keep them in our memory, obey them
constantly in our life, let them shape and mold our
daily life and our every act.
This
is really the method of abiding in Christ. It is through His words that Jesus
imparts Himself to us. The words He speaks unto us, they are spirit and they
are life. (John 6:33) It is
vain to expect power in prayer unless we
meditate much upon the words of Christ, and let them sink deep and find a
permanent abode in our hearts. There are many who wonder why they are so
powerless in prayer, but the very simple explanation of it all is found in
their neglect of the words of Christ. They have not hidden His words in their hearts;
His words do not abide in them. It is not by seasons of mystical meditation and
rapturous experiences that we learn to abide
in Christ; it is by
feeding upon His word, His written word as found in the Bible, and looking to
the Holy Spirit to implant these words in our hearts and to make them a living
thing in our hearts. If we thus let the words of Christ abide in us, they will
stir us up in prayer. They will be the mold in which
our prayers are shaped, and our prayers will be necessarily along the line of
God's will, and will prevail with Him. Prevailing prayer is almost an impossibility where there is neglect of the study of the
Word of God.
Mere
intellectual study of the Word of God is not enough; there must be meditation
upon it. The Word of God must be revolved over and over and over in the mind,
with a constant looking to God by His Spirit to make that Word a living thing
in the heart. The prayer that is born of meditation upon the Word of God is the
prayer that soars upward most easily to God's listening ear.
George
Muller, one of the mightiest men of prayer of the present generation, when the
hour for prayer came would begin by reading and meditating upon God's Word
until out of the study of the Word a prayer began to form itself in his heart.
Thus God Himself was a real author of the prayer, and God answered the prayers
which He Himself had inspired.
The
Word of God is the instrument through which the Holy Spirit works,
it is the sword of the Spirit in more senses than one; and the one who would
know the work of the Holy Spirit in any
direction must feed upon the Word. The one who would
pray in the Spirit must meditate much upon the Word, that
the Holy Spirit may have something through which He can work. The Holy Spirit
works His prayers in us through the Word, and neglect of the Word makes praying
in the Holy Spirit an impossibility. If we would feed the
fire of our prayers with the fuel of God's Word, all our difficulties in prayer
would disappear.