Prayer and Poverty
Romans 8.26 “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.”
“To ask how we are to get our prayers answered is a different point of view from the New Testament. According to the New Testament, prayer is God’s answer to our poverty, not a power we exercise to obtain an answer. We have the idea that prayer is only an exercise of the spiritual life. ‘Pray without ceasing.’ We read that the disciples said to our Lord, ‘Lord, teach us to pray.’ The disciples were good men and well-versed in Jewish praying, yet when they came in contact with Jesus Christ, instead of realizing they could pray well, they came to the conclusion they did not know how to pray at all, and our Lord instructed them in the initial stages of prayer… after we are born again we became conscious of what Paul mentions here, our utter infirmity– ‘I do not know how to pray.’ We become conscious not only of the power God has given us by His Spirit, but of our own utter infirmity. We Hinder our life of devotion when we lose the distinction in thinking between these two. Reliance on the Holy Spirit for prayer is what Paul is bringing out in this verse. It is an unrealized point; we state it glibly enough, but Paul touches the thing we need to remember; he uncovers the truth of our infirmity. The whole source of our strength is receiving, recognizing, and relying on the Holy Spirit.”
-Oswald Chambers
If You Will Ask, pg 100
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Dad-e-o
Father, Husband, Theological Dreamer, Web Designer, Photographer, Coffee Chugger... Jesus obsessed & dreaming of a better Christianity. It's kind of like listening to a cross between guerrilla radio and a street corner prophet with a bad case of tourettes.
