What do you think about what R.A. Torrey said? “We are too busy to pray, and so we are too busy to have power. We have a great deal of activity, but we accomplish little; many services but few conversions; much machinery but few results.”
Is he correct? Or is he making an overstatement? Is it true that ‘results’ come from prayer, or do the results come only from our activity?
Well, look at what our Lord said in John 15:7
“If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.”
There is an abiding in Christ that must be taking place. There is an abiding in the Word and it’s abiding in us that must be going on. And then there is the asking. That is prayer. The fruit, the results, come when the people of God who are abiding in Him (and our interaction with the Word of God is crucial for that abiding to take place) pray.
It really isn’t complicated. Real fruit is caused by God. It is not caused by us and our activity. We do our activity because we know that when God chooses to use the activity He causes fruit. But it isn’t all automatic. It isn’t merely a matter of doing the right things and then fruit comes. No. It is God who causes the fruit or the fruit doesn’t come.
And so we pray.
We have no other recourse. We have no other hope. We have no other option.
We must pray.
And so we gather together to ask.
Will you join us this Sunday evening at 7pm? Come and be a part of asking God for fruit, and seeing Him at work.
March 6th, 2010 at 7:37 pm
I am praising the Lord for your focus on prayer. R.A. Torrey’s comments are so true, especially in my life. Discipline is such a key, but so hard be be committed to.
One Question: You said on Sunday that 1st Tim 2:1 uses the same word as !st Tim 1:3 for the Englist word “urge”. However, in the NKJV Bible 1:3 uses the word “urged and @:1 uses the word “exhort”. Why would the same Greek word be translated two different ways? The NASB and the NIV translates the word the same in both cases.