The praying life
If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you ~ John 15:7 ESV
The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective ~ James 5:16b NIV
Our power in prayer depend upon our life. It’s the prayer of a good person that is powerful and effective. One of the greatest obstacles to our prayer life according to the book of Isaiah 59:1-2 is sin. We receive whatever we ask because we obey and please God. It is as we learn to live the life that pleases God that He will give what we ask of Him.
Jesus, in the parable of the vine says that, “if you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” Any person who wishes to pray aright, powerfully, and receive whatever he asks must learn to abide in Christ. Jesus is the vine and we are the branches and this means that we must simply learn to live like the branches. This is one of the secrets to effective prayer.
The work of the branch is to serve the vine so that through it, the vine may do its work. The vine is the producer of the sap that makes the grape and so the branch only receives the sap and bears the grape. A believer is expected to live for Christ because the only reason why you exist is to serve God. With our life abiding in Him, and His words abiding, kept and obeyed in our heart and life, transmitted into our very being, there will be grace to pray aright, and the faith to receive whatsoever we ask of Him.
Full surrender to Jesus is vital in the life of every praying Christian. For us to receive from God, we have to allow ourselves to be the branch, and nothing else but the branch. We must connect ourselves and be ready to place ourselves wholly at the disposal of Jesus, the living vine; bear His fruit through Him, and live every moment only for Him. The unlimited devotion of the branch-life to fruit bearing, and the unlimited access to the treasures of the vine life are inseparable. It is the life abiding wholly in Christ that can pray the effectual prayer in the name of Christ. It is as men live that they pray. It is the life that with whole hearted devotion gives up all for God and to God that can claim all from God.
Our God longs exceedingly to prove Himself the faithful God and mighty helper of His people. He only waits for hearts wholly turned from the world to Himself, and open to receive His gifts. The man who loses all will find all. The branch that only and truly lives abiding in Christ, the Heavenly vine, entirely given up, like Christ, to bear fruit in the salvation of men, and has His words taken up into and abiding in its life, may and dare ask what it will – it shall be done.
Here is the life that can pray: A branch entirely given up to the vine and its aims, with all responsibility for its cleansing cast on the vine dresser; a branch abiding in Christ, trusting and yielding to God for His cleansing, can bear much fruit. In the power of such a life we shall love prayer, we shall know how to pray, we shall pray, and receive whatsoever we ask.
Adapted from Andrew Murray’s book: “With Christ in the school of Prayer”.
