PRAYER IS NEVER A SUBSTITUTE FOR OBEDIENCE

“Not every one that saith unto me, LORD, LORD, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven” (MATTHEW 7:21)

Have you noticed how much praying for revival has been going on of late—and how little revival has resulted?

 

I believe our problem is that we have been trying to substitute praying for obeying, and it simply will not work!

 

A church, for instance, follows its traditions without much thought about whether they are scriptural or not. Or it surrenders to pressure from public opinion and falls in with popular trends which carry it far from the New Testament pattern. Then the leaders notice a lack of spiritual power among the people and become concerned about it. What to do? How can they bring down refreshing showers to quicken their fainting souls?

 

The answer is all ready for them. The books tell them how—pray!

 

The passing evangelist confirms what the books have said—pray!

 

So the pastor calls his people to pray. The tide of feeling runs high and it looks for a while as if the revival might be on the way. But it fails to arrive and the zeal for prayer begins to flag. Soon the church is back where it was before and a numb discouragement settles over everyone.

 

What has gone wrong? Simply this: Neither the leaders nor the people have made any effort to obey the Word of God. They felt that their only weakness was failure to pray, when actually in a score of ways they were falling short in the vital matter of obedience!

 

  1. W. Tozer