Watch and Pray

The following quote is from Oswald Chambers’ book “If You Will Ask.” As always, he gives a great divine viewpoint concerning prayer in this quote.

-Pastor Byron

“Watch and pray,” said Jesus in the center of His own agony. If we don’t, we shall slip into the lure of wrong roads without knowing it. The only way to keep right is to watch and pray. The basis of prayer is not human earnestness, not human need, not the human will; it is redemption, and its living center is a personal Holy Spirit. Prayer on any other basis is stupid. A child can pray. Through His own agony in redemption, God has made it as easy to pray as it sounds. A rationally minded being can ridicule nothing more easily than prayer. “Praying always”-the unutterable simplicity of it! No panic, no flurry, always at leisure from ourselves on the inside.

“Being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints.” It is all very well to have prayer meetings, but are we continually practicing in the armor of God, keeping our hearts stout in the courage of God’s Spirit and taking our orders from Him? Or are we making an ingenious compromise? There is only one service that has no snares and that is prayer. Preaching has snares to the natural heart; so has public service. Prayer has no snare because it is based on the redemption of the Lord Jesus Christ made efficacious all the time by the Holy Spirit.

Lord God Omnipotent, how my soul delight to know that you care for sparrows and number the hairs of our head! Lord breathe on me till I am in the frame of mind and body to worship you.