Communion With God

Chapter 23—Obedience and Faith a Condition of Prayer

BIBLE GEM

“Seek ye the Lord while He may be found, call ye upon Him while He is near: let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.”—Isaiah 55:6, 7 CWG 58.1

QUESTION

What are the conditions I must meet if my prayers are to be answered? What is one of the first of these? Am I meeting these conditions? CWG 58.2

ANSWER

Must feel our need: “There are certain conditions upon which we may expect that God will hear and answer our prayers. One of the first of these is that we feel our need of help from Him.”—Steps to Christ, 95 CWG 58.3

Wholehearted consecration required: “All who consecrate soul, body, and spirit to God will be constantly receiving a new endowment of physical and mental power. The inexhaustible supplies of heaven are at their command.... Through cooperation with Christ they are complete in Him, and in their human weakness they are enabled to do the deeds of Omnipotence.”—The Desire of Ages, 827 CWG 58.4

Obedience necessary: “Prayer can never take the place of duty.... Those who bring their petitions to God, claiming His promise while they do not comply with the conditions, insult Jehovah. They bring the name of Christ as their authority for the fulfillment of the promise, but they do not those things that would show faith in Christ and love for Him.”—Christ's Object Lessons, 143 CWG 58.5

“As the giver of every blessing, God claims a certain portion of all we possess.... But if we withhold from Him that which is His own, how can we claim His blessing? If we are unfaithful stewards of earthly things, how can we expect Him to trust us with the things of heaven? It may be that here is the secret of unanswered prayer.”—Christ's Object Lessons, 144 CWG 58.6

“If we render to Him only a partial, halfhearted obedience, His promises will not be fulfilled to us.”—The Ministry of Healing, 227 CWG 59.1

Faith another condition: “Another element of prevailing prayer is faith.... Do we take Him at His word?”—Steps to Christ, 96 CWG 59.2

“We are too faithless. Oh how I wish that I could lead our people to have faith in God! They need not feel that in order to exercise faith they must be wrought up into a high sate of excitement. All they have to do is to believe God's Word, just as they believe one another's word. He hath said it, and He will perform His Word. Calmly rely on His promise, because He means all that He says. Say, He has spoken to me in His Word, and He will fulfill every promise that He has made.... Act as if your heavenly Father could be trusted.”—Selected Messages 1:83, 84 CWG 59.3

SUMMARY AND PRAYER THOUGHT

Wickedness and faithlessness go hand in hand. Unless we are going to believe that God is able to cleanse us and give us faith and Christlike love and His Holy Spirit, we have no foundation to build on. CWG 59.4

Don't let anyone think that God will answer a faithless unbeliever's prayers. Doubting Thomases will be left with empty hands. CWG 59.5

When we finally recognize our great and desperate need of God, and the fact that nothing in our hand we bring but simply to the cross we cling and we have no righteousness of our own because the very best words, deeds and actions are like filthy rags, when we recognize this and we come humbly to the foot of the cross to be cleansed and purified from all sin and unbelief and we finally acknowledge that without heavenly help, Holy Spirit power, we are unable to do anything then Heaven takes over. Mega-changes take place. Then we can say with Paul, I live, yet not I, but Christ lives inside of me. Because Christ lives inside of us, we are able to do all good things. Jesus challenges us to do even greater things than He has done while He was here on earth. John 14:12. This is what we, God's sleeping church, need to recognize. CWG 59.6

Let us pray with faith like we have never prayed before that God's mighty Holy Spirit power may flow through us in a latter rain experience right now. CWG 59.7