The passion for prayer. Effectual prayer.

Sumner Wemp

The Passion of Prayer

The incense was made to ascend by burning. "And Aaron shall burn thereon sweet incense every morning" (Ex. 30:7). This reminds us that "the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much" (Jas. 5:16). Sometimes we sense that our prayers do not get any higher than our heads. If we were to search our hearts honestly we would have to admit that our prayer at that moment was not a deep burden or conviction of our heart. Sometimes, too, we know our heart is not right toward God as we pray. Also, there are times when we are conscious of deep need; we are greatly moved by the urgency of the matter and cry out of broken hearts to God. This is the burning of incense, the effectual fervent prayer that ascends to God.

Cheap, trumped-up, sentimental emotionalism won't get a thing from God, but the person who comes to Him with a broken heart, a broken and a contrite spirit, shall be effectual and receive answers. When Hannah was deeply moved as she prayed to God for a son, she said, "I have...poured out my soul before the Lord: (1 Sam 1:15). In prayer like that, one is not so much conscious of the phrasing of his petitions as he is of communicating his burden to God and crying out for help. Where is brokenness of spirit today? Where do you hear praying out of broken hearts? How long has it been since someone prayed and you felt as though God were right there? When did you feel as though the person reached up and got hold of God Himself as he cried in agony and a broken spirit for God to hear and answer him?

It isn't that our tears or our agony change God's heart and mind, but our passion simply tells us that our hearts are in tune with God that we can pray in His will. "Not my will, but thine, be done." We are praying in the Spirit" so we can receive the petitions we ask of God. As we look at the world in sin and see men and women about to perish, we need to get stirred up and cry out to God about these things. Effectual, fervent prayer will go up as incense and reach the throne of God to get our prayers answered.

I exhort, "Pray for all men...that they might be saved "for God will have all men to be saved." 1 Tim. 2:1-4. When have you heard that prayed in any church? Some will say "Oh, you cannot bunch them up like that". Really, Paul did when he prayed that "Israel might be saved" Rom 10:1. Jesus bunched us up when He said "I pray for them..." John 17:9. We believers must stop quibbling over such things and obey God to pray "for all men to be saved" and then obey God and preach the gospel to ever creature, person" Mk 16:15. Make sense.

"This poor man cried and the Lord heard him" Ps 34:6

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