Gossip: you can pray

Friday, September 15, 2017
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “In that day you will ask nothing of me. Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you. Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.”
    —John 16:23-24 (ESV)
Quotation:
    Well, to begin with, you can pray. Pray!, you say scornfully, pray! I knew it would all fizzle out, and come to nothing. I could pray!
    Yes, you could pray, and, whatever you may think about it, using it as a poor makeshift of a thing much lower than a second-best, not really a best at all, on which men fall back only when they can do nothing effectively, and are too fidgety to be able to do nothing at all, Christ holds that prayer is a tremendous power which achieves what, without it, was a sheer impossibility. And this amazing thing you can set into operation. And the fact that you are not so using it, and simply don’t believe in it and its efficiency and efficacy as our fathers did, and that so many nowadays agree with you, is certainly a major reason why the churches are so cold, and the promises seem so tardy of fulfilment.
    ... A. J. Gossip (1873-1954), Experience Worketh Hope, Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1945, p. 58 (see the book)
    See also John 16:23-24; 1 Sam. 1:15; 1 Tim. 2:8
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, quicken my prayer! CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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