Magnificent Prayer #249
Magnificent Prayer #249
Quench not the Spirit.
1 Thessalonians 5:19 KJV
When the Holy Spirit is urging you to pray, you should do so. If you do not pray, you will feel suffocated within as if there is something left undone. In the event you still do not pray, you will feel even more weighed down. Finally, if you do not pray at all, the spirit of prayer as well as the burden of prayer will be so dulled that it will be difficult for you to regain such feeling and to pray the prayer according to God’s will afterwards.
Each time God puts a prayer thought into us His Holy Spirit first moves us into having a burden to pray for that particular matter. As soon as we receive such feeling we should immediately give ourselves to prayer. We should pay the cost of praying well for this matter. For when we are moved by the Holy Spirit, our own spirit instantly senses a burden as though something were laid upon our heart. After we pray it out we feel relieved as though having a heavy stone removed from off us. But in case we do not pour it out in prayer, we will get the feeling of something not yet done. Were we to be faithful in prayer, that is to say, were we to pray as soon as the burden comes upon us, prayer would not become a weight, it would instead be light and pleasant.
What a pity that so many people quench the Holy Spirit here. They quench the sensation which the Holy Spirit gives to move them to pray. Hereafter, few of such sensations will ever come upon them. Thus they are no longer useful vessels before the Lord. The Lord can achieve nothing through them since they are no longer able to breathe out in prayer the will of God.
WATCHMAN NEE
Pray About It: When a Christian has become an experienced pray-er, God can use that person to pray His will into effect. He does this by placing a prayer burden on the heart of the pray-er that can only be discharged through prevailing prayer.
Sometimes we receive these burdens and are unaware of what they are. All we know is that we feel a certain heaviness about a particular matter. If we would pray fully, we would sense a lightening of our prayer burden because we allow the Holy Spirit to pray through us.
Has God given you such burdens? Is there a heaviness you’ve been feeling lately about a person, a situation, or perhaps a foreign land? Then pray for it until the burden is fully discharged. And be willing to receive new burdens from the Lord.
Burden is the secret of prayer.
WATCHMAN NEE
From the book
