PRAYER—THE CHIEF PURPOSE OF THE CHURCH

“…my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples’” (Isa 56:7 ESV).

“…if in every Church united effectual prayer were regarded as one of the chief purposes for which they are banded together…who can say what blessing might come to, and through, those who thus agreed to prove God in the fulfillment of His promise….Most Churches think their members are gathered into one simply to take care of and build up each other.  They know not that God rules the world by the prayers of His saints; that prayer is the power by which Satan is conquered; that by prayer the Church on earth has disposal of the powers of the heavenly world” Andrew Murray (ref#19,FIFTEENTH LESSON).

“…it is when we know ourselves to be united to Christ and one with Him, and representative in a true fashion of Himself, as well as when, in humble reliance on His work for us and His loving heart, we draw near, that our prayer has power, as the old divines used to say, ‘to move the Hand that moves the world,’ and to bring down a rush of blessing upon our heads” MacLaren Expositions on Holy Scripture (ref#242, [John 14:12-14]).

“All the doings of a Christian man, if done in faith, and holding by Christ, are Christ’s doings, inasmuch as He is the life and the power which does them all.  And Christ’s deeds are reproduced and perpetuated in His humble follower, inasmuch as the life which is imparted will unfold itself according to its own kind; and he that loves Christ will be changed into His likeness, and become a partaker of His Spirit” MacLaren Expositions on Holy Scripture (ref#242, [John 14:12-14]).

“The prayer of faith links man’s petition to the power of God.  All men believe in the power of prayer to influence mind, develop character, and sanctify motive and will, but that is not all.  Prayer is force.  Prayer changes things.  The Lord God of Elijah had sovereign and omnipotent power, and these were at the command of the prayer of faith” Samuel Chadwick (ref#4, p88).

Paul felt himself the member of a body, on the sympathy and co-operation of which he was dependent, and that he counted on the prayers of these Churches to gain for him, what otherwise might not be given.  The prayers of the Church were to him as real a factor in the work of the kingdom, as the power of God” Andrew Murray (ref#19, FIFTEENTH LESSON).