"When a man is speaking to God he is at his
very acme (acme is the highest point; summit; peak). It is the highest activity
of the human soul, and therefore it is at the same time the ultimate test of a
man's true spiritual condition. There is nothing that tells the truth about us
as Christian people so much as our prayer life. Everything we do in the
Christian life is easier than prayer. It is not so difficult to give alms...you
can have a true spirit of philanthropy in people who are not Christian at
all...The same applies also to the question of self-discipline-refraining from
certain things and taking up particular duties and tasks. God knows it is very
much easier to preach like this from the pulpit than it is to pray. Prayer is
undoubtedly the ultimate test, because a man can speak to others with greater
ease than he can speak to God. Ultimately, therefore, a man discovers the real
condition of his spiritual life when he examines himself in private, when he is
alone with God...have we not all known what it is to find that, somehow, we
have less to say to God when we are alone than when we are in the presence of
others? It should not be so; but it often is. So that it is when we have left
the realm of activities and outward dealings with other people, and are alone
with God, that we really know where we stand in a spiritual sense, it is not
only the highest activity of the soul, it is the ultimate test of our spiritual
condition."
..............
O the pure
delight of a single hour
That before Thy
throne I spend,
When I kneel in
prayer, and with Thee, my God,
I commune as
friend with friend
The
outstanding characteristic of al the most saintly people that the world has
ever known has been that they have not only spent much time in private prayer,
but have also delighted in it...The more saintly the person, the more time such
a person spends in conversation with God. Thus it is a vital and ail important
matter...
This has
been true in the experience of God's people throughout the centuries. We find
it recorded in the Gospels that John the Baptist had been teaching his
disciples to pray. They obviously had felt the need of instruction, and they
had asked him...And John had taught how to pray. Our Lord's disciples felt
exactly the same need... 'Lord, teach us how to pray.' Undoubtedly the desire
arose in their hearts because they were conscious of this kind of natural,
instinctive, initial difficulty of which we are all aware; but it must also
have been greatly increased when they watched His own prayer life. They saw how
He would arise 'a great while before dawn' and go up into the mountains to pray,
and how He would spend whole nights in prayer. And sometimes, I have no doubt;
they said to themselves, 'What does He talk about? What does He do?' They may
have also thought, 'I find after a few minutes in prayer that I come to the end
of my words. What is it that enables Him to be drawn out in prayer? What is it
that leads to this ease and abandonment?' 'Lord,' they said, 'teach us how to
pray.' They meant by this... 'We wish we knew God as You know Him. Teach us how
to pray.' Have you ever felt that? Have you never felt dissatisfied with your
prayer life, and longed to know more and more what it is truly to pray? If you
have, it is an encouraging sign."
-From
Martyn Lloyd-Jones's Writings A First Book Of Daily Readings Selected by
Frank Cumbers Published by Eerdmans Publishers Grand Rapids, Ml 1970 Pages 59,
68.
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