Apr.06.03: Light For The Day - "The Call To Pray" -- Acts 6:3,4 (NIV) "Brothers, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them 4 and will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word." ------------------------- Evan Roberts says he had the "call" to prayer in Newcastle Emlyn in the autumn of 1904, but unexpectedly he found himself on a tide carrying him into public ministry, and the call to prayer for the time being sunk into abeyance. It did not return as a definite call demanding attention until sometime in the spring of 1907. He was then in Leicester, in the weakness of a breakdown in health, which had kept him aside from public work since the beginning of 1906. Even during this time of weakness there had been many indications of his power in prayer, and some very extraordinary answers to prayer had been given. The call to prayer came back suddenly one day in the spring of 1907. The Lord's servant had been for two hours or more, with another, dealing exhaustively in prayer with the needs of the moment. The "time of prayer" was over, and he was occupied with some other thing, when a "draw" to prayer came again, and he said to himself, "If I obey this, I shall be always 'praying.' " He dropped the matter at hand, and followed the draw to prayer, when he discovered a spring opened, as it were, in his spirit out of which came a prayer "stream" full of unction, just as other Spirit-taught believers find God opens the Word to them for the ministry of teaching or preaching. Even Robert's prayer work lasted for seven years. He said that he fell asleep each night praying and awoke in the morning with his "spirit and mind alert for dealing with God." -- The Overcomer, Dec.1914 The above episode from the life of Even Robert's Illustrates the way God worked in his life. Not everyone will have so dramatic and experience. But God does lead us to pray and expects that we will follow. If we don't, our hesitation may impede the work God would have for us. Listen if God calls you to more prayer. -- NHarrison -------------- Give yourselves to prayer and the ministry of the Word. If you do not pray, God will probably lay you aside from your ministry as He did me, to teach you to pray. -- Robert Murray McCheyne When God allows one of His children to be put on the shelf, He knows where they are. Don't get off the shelf before He lifts you off. Posses your soul in patience. -- Oswald Chambers ----------- -- Psalm 27:4 (NIV) "One thing I ask of the LORD, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to seek Him in His temple." -- 1 Timothy 4:16 (NIV) "Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers." -- Ephesians 1:15-23 (NIV) "15 For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, 16 I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. 17 I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know Him better. 18 I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which He has called you, the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints, 19 and His incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of His mighty strength, 20 which He exerted in Christ when He raised him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly realms, 21 far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. 22 And God placed all things under His feet and appointed Him to be head over everything for the church, 23 which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills everything in every way."