03.36. In The Glory Of His Father
In the Glory of His Father The fact that we pray to God our Father in heaven tells us much as to how we should pray. The Son of God gloried in the glory of His Father. It was His habit to rise early that He might behold His glory and delight in His presence . He rejoiced in the Father’s greatness and in the majesty of His power. It is good to go over His affirmations of the Father. "MY FATHER!" The accents of adorning love vibrate in every tone. "God is a spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth," (John 4:24) "for the Father seeketh such to worship him." (John 4:23) "My Father. . . . is greater than all. . . I and the Father are one." (John 10:29-30)
He loved to dwell upon the care and bounty of the Father’s love. Nothing is insignificant. Each is to the Infinite as if there were no other. Even the odd sparrow is not forgotten, and man is so much the more the child of His care that even the hairs of his head are numbered. He lived in the sovereign will of the holy and righteous Father. He did not pray to subdue the Father’s will to his desire; but that the will of the Father might be done. The sweat and agony of prayer were in the strong praying of the Father’s Son, and it was always in obedience to the Father’s will.
Because we pray to our Heavenly Father in the secret place of prayer, we may pray with the artless unreserve of little children. There is nothing about which we may not pray. We pray as His children, and we trust Him as our Heavenly Father. His answer will transcend our asking. Prayer is in itself a discipline and an education. The Spirit instructs and trains in the school of prayer. A true father waits to bless in discretion, as well as in readiness. Sometimes He waits for us. Sometimes the answer is given long before the one who prayed is told, but "every one that asketh, receiveth." Dr. Adoniram Judson as he lay dying heard of the remarkable answer to his prayer for. the Jews when he was a missionary in Burma, and he uttered this testimony: "I never prayed sincerely and earnestly for anything but it came; at some time -- no matter how distant the day -- somehow, in some shape, probably the last I should have devised, it came."
"When thou prayest, enter into thine inner chamber, and having shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret" (Matthew 6:6) - "Unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think." (Ephesians 3:20)