Lesson 47: Prayer and Love, part 3
We may gather these thoughts into a third lesson: In our life with men the one thing on which everything depends is love. The spirit of forgiveness is the spirit of love. Because God is love, He forgives: it is only when we are dwelling in love that we can forgive as God forgives. In love to the brethren we have the evidence of love to the Father, the ground of confidence before God, and the assurance that our prayer will be heard, (1 John 4:20; 3:18-21, 23.). “Let us love in deed and truth; hereby shall we assure our heart before Him. If our heart condemn us not, we have boldness toward God, and whatever we ask, we receive of Him.” Neither faith nor work will profit if we have not love; it is love that unites with God, it is love that proves the reality of faith. As essential as in the word that precedes the great prayer-promise in Mark 11:24, “Have faith in God,” is this one that follows it, “Have love to men.” The right relations to the living God above me, and the living men around me, are the conditions of effectual prayer.
This love is of special consequence when we labor for such and pray for them. We sometimes give ourselves to work for Christ, from zeal for His cause, as we call it, or for our own spiritual health, without giving ourselves in personal self-sacrificing love for those whose souls we seek. No wonder that our faith is feeble and does not conquer. To look on each wretched one, however unlovable he may be, in the light of the tender love of Jesus the Shepherd seeking the lost; to see Jesus Christ in him, and to take him up, for Jesus’ sake, in a heart that really loves—this is the secret of believing prayer and successful effort. Jesus, in speaking of forgiveness, speaks of love as its root. Just as in the Sermon on the Mount He connected His teaching and promises about prayer with the call to be merciful, as the Father in heaven is merciful (Matthew 5:7, 9, 22, 38-48), so we see it here: a loving life is the condition of believing prayer.
It has been said that there is nothing so heart-searching as believing prayer, or even the honest effort to pray in faith. Oh let us not turn the edge of that self-examination by the thought that God does not hear our prayer for reasons known to Himself alone. By no means. “You ask and receive not, because you ask amiss.” Let that word of God search us. Let us ask whether our prayer is indeed the expression of a life wholly given over to the will of God and the love of man. Love is the only soil in which faith can strike its roots and thrive. As it throws its arms up, and opens its heart heavenward, the Father always looks to see if it has them opened towards the evil and the unworthy too. In that love, not indeed the love of perfect attainment, but the love of fixed purpose and sincere obedience, faith can alone obtain the blessing. It is he who gives himself to let the love of God dwell in him, and in the practice of daily life to love as God loves, who will have the power to believe in the Love that hears his every prayer. It is the Lamb, who is in the midst of the throne; it is suffering and forbearing love that prevails with God in prayer. The merciful shall obtain mercy; the meek shall inherit the earth.
Prayer: Lord Jesus, my Blessed Teacher, teach me to forgive and to love. Let the power of Your blood make the pardon of my sins such a reality that forgiveness, as shown by You to me, and by me to others, may be the very joy of heaven. Show me whatever in my relationship with fellowmen might hinder my fellowship with God, so that my daily life in my own home and in society may be the school in which strength and confidence are gathered for the prayer of faith.