Lesson 8: Persistent Prayer
Hebrews 4:16 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
Is your language one of persistent prayer? Oh! come then and say: "Lord Jesus, I cannot let You go except You bless me." The question is asked so often: "What is the cause of the feeble life of so many Christians?" What is really the matter? What is actually the want?
How little the Church responds to Christ's call! how little the Church is what Christ would have her to be! What is the cause of all the trouble? Various answers may be given, but there is one answer which includes all the other answers, and that is, each believer wants the personal full revelation of a personal Christ as an indwelling Lord, as a satisfying portion. When the Lord Jesus was here upon earth, what was it that distinguished His disciples from other people? He took them away from their fish-nets, and from their homes, and He gathered them about Himself, and they knew Jesus. He was their Master, and guarded them, and they followed Him. And what is to make a difference between Christ's disciples--not those who are just hoping to get to heaven, but Christ's whole-hearted disciples--what is to make a difference between them and other people? It is this, to be in fellowship with Jesus--every hour of the day; and just as Christ upon earth was able to keep those people with Him for three years, day by day, so Christ is able in heaven now to do what He could not do when He was on earth--to keep in the closest fellowship with every believer throughout the whole world.
Glory be to God! You know that text in Ephesians: "He that descended is the same also that ascended, that He might fill all things." Why was my Lord Jesus taken up to heaven away from the life of earth? Because the life of earth is a life confined to localities, but the life in heaven is a life in which there is no limit and no bound and no locality, and Christ was taken up to heaven that, in the power of God, of the omnipresent God, He might be able to fill every individual here and be with every individual believer.
That is what my heart wants to realize by faith; that is a possibility, that is a promise, that is my birthright, and I want to have it, and I want by the grace of God to say, "Jesus, I will not rest until You have revealed Yourself fully to my soul."
*Memorize Hebrews 4:16.