Prayer and Promises

The Promise 

With Your counsel You will guide me, and afterward receive me to glory. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. 

— Psalm 73:24,26, NASB 

The Testimony 

When we go to Him for wisdom or grace, we are not to look to ourselves to see if he has given us a special feeling as an assurance that he has fulfilled his word. Feeling is no criterion. Great evils have resulted when Christians have followed feeling. Satan can give feelings and impressions, and those who take these as their guide will surely be led astray. How do I know that Jesus hears my prayer?—I know it by his promise. He says he will hear the needy when they cry unto him, and I believe his word. 

Then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you. And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart. (Jeremiah 29:12, 13.) 

Daily prayer is as essential to growth in grace, and even to spiritual life itself, as is temporal food to physical well-being. We should accustom ourselves to often lift the thoughts to God in prayer. If the mind wanders, we must bring it back; by persevering effort, habit will finally make it easy. We cannot for one moment separate ourselves from Christ with safety. 

All our power of soul, body, and spirit must be engaged in the Christian warfare. We must look to Christ for strength and grace, and we shall gain the victory as surely as Jesus died for us. 

Satan is very ready to insinuate that prayer is a mere form, and avails us nothing. He cannot bear to have his powerful rival appealed to. At the sound of fervent prayer the hosts of darkness tremble. Fearing that their captive may escape, they form a wall around him, that Heaven’s light may not reach his soul. But if in his distress and helplessness the sinner looks to Jesus, pleading the merits of his blood, our compassionate Redeemer listens to the earnest, persevering prayer of faith, and sends to his deliverance a re-enforcement of angels that excel in strength. And when these angels, all-powerful, clothed with the armory of heaven, come to the help of the fainting, pursued soul, the angels of darkness fall back, well knowing that their battle is lost, and that one more soul is escaping from the power of their influence. 

— Living by Principle, p.34,35 

The Response 

Dear Father in heaven, in my helplessness I plead the merits of the blood of my compassionate Redeemer. Cleanse me from my own ways. You are my only strength, my only hope. By Your grace I cling to the promise that You will guide me with Your counsel and fill me with wisdom from above. You promised that You will listen to my prayer and I believe Your word. You are the strength of my heart!