In contrast with this, what a mighty force prayerful praying is. Real prayer helps God and man. God’s Kingdom is advanced by it. The greatest good comes to man by it. Prayer can do anything that God can do. The pity is that we do not believe this as we ought, and we do not put it to the test.
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_The deepest need of the Church to-day is not for any material or external thing, but the deepest need is spiritual. Prayerless work will never bring in the kingdom. We neglect to pray in the prescribed way. We seldom enter the closet and shut the door for a season of prayer. Kingdom interests are pressing on us thick and fast and we must pray. Prayerless giving will never evangelise the world._ —DR. A. J. GORDON.
_The great subject of prayer, that comprehensive need of the Christian’s life, is intimately bound up in the personal fulness of the Holy Spirit. It is “by the One Spirit we have access unto the Father” (Eph. ii. 18), and by the same Spirit, having entered the audience chamber through the “new and living way,” we are enabled to pray in the will of God (Rom. viii. 15, 26-27; Gal. iv. 6; Eph. vi. 18; Jude 20-21)._
_Here is the secret of prevailing prayer, to pray under a direct inspiration of the Holy Spirit, whose petitions for us and through us are always according to the Divine purpose, and hence certain of answer. “Praying in the Holy Ghost” is but co-operating with the will of God, and such prayer is always victorious. How many Christians there are who cannot pray, and who seek by effort, resolve, joining prayer circles, etc., to cultivate in themselves the “holy art of intercession,” and all to no purpose. Here for them and for all is the only secret of a real prayer life—“Be filled with the Spirit,” who is “the Spirit of grace and supplication.”_ —REV. J. STUART HOLDEN, M.A.