Coming into God’s presence is an amazingly high privilege. Once the petitioner has entered into that secret place—mentally, physically, spiritually, and emotionally—God wants his or her full attention. Thus, the place of prayer is very important. Read the following carefully and then examine your own place of prayer, making adjustments as God directs.
To the Closet
E. M. BOUNDS
It is to the closet Paul directs us to go. The unfailing remedy for all burdensome, distressing care is prayer. The place where the Lord is at hand is the closet of prayer. There He is always found, and there He is at hand to bless, to deliver, and to help. The one place where the Lord’s presence and power will be more fully realized than any other place is the closet of prayer.
Into a Mountain Alone with God
ANDREW MURRAY
He was alone praying …
LUKE 9:18
Jesus … departed again into a mountain himself alone.
JOHN 6:15
Human beings need to be alone with God. Our fall consisted in our being brought, through the lust of the flesh and the world, under the power of things visible and temporal. Our restoration through salvation is meant to bring us back to the Father’s love and fellowship.
We need to be alone with God, to yield ourselves to the presence and the power of His holiness. Christ on earth needed it. He could not live the life of a Son here in the flesh without at times separating Himself entirely from His surroundings and being alone with God. How much more must this be indispensable to us!
Alone with God—that is the secret of true power in prayer. There is no true holiness, no clothing with the Holy Spirit and with power, without being alone daily with God.
When our Lord Jesus gave us the command to pray to our Father in secret, He gave us the promise that the Father would hear such prayers and mightily answer them in our life before others. What a privilege it is to begin every morning with intimate prayer. Let it be the one thing our hearts are set on—seeing, finding, and meeting God alone. The time will come when you will be amazed at the thought that one could suggest five minutes was enough.
Through Your Personality
S. D. GORDON
No matter where you are you do more through your praying than through your personality. If you were in India you could add your personality to your prayer. That would be a great thing to do. But whether there or here, you must first win the victory, every step, every life, every foot of the way, in secret, in the spirit-realm, and then add the mighty touch of your personality in service. You can do more than pray, after you have prayed. But you can not do more than pray until you have prayed. And that is where we have all seemed to make a slip at times. We think we can do more where we are through our service than prayer to give power to service. No, we can do nothing of real power until we have done the prayer thing.
Here is a man by my side. I can talk to him. I can bring my personality to bear upon him, that I may win him. But before I can influence his will at all for God, I must first have won the victory in the secret place. Intercession is winning the victory over the chief, and service is taking the field after the chief is driven off. Such service is limited by the limitation of personality to one place.
Court Attendance
E. M. BOUNDS
Sometimes loud words are in prayer. The psalmist said, “Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray, and cry aloud” (Psalm 55:17). The praying one wants something which he has not got. He wants something which God has in His possession, and which he can get by praying. He is beggared, bewildered, oppressed, and confused. He is before God in supplication, in prayer, and in thanksgiving. These are the attitudes, the incense, the paraphernalia, and the fashion of this hour, the court attendance of his soul before God.
That Door Is Important
S. D. GORDON
Oh, you can pray anywhere, but you are not likely to unless you have been off in some quiet place shut in alone with God. The Master said, “Enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door”—that door is important; it shuts out and it shuts in—“pray to thy Father which is in secret” (Matthew 6:6). God is here in this shut-in spot. One must get alone to find out that he is never alone. The more alone we are as far as people are concerned, the least alone we are so far as God is concerned.
The quiet place and time are needful to train the ears for keen hearing. A quiet place shuts out the outer sounds and gives the inner ear a chance to learn other sounds.
A man was standing in a telephone booth trying to talk but could not make out the message. He kept saying, “I can’t hear!” The other man finally said sharply, “If you’ll shut that door you can hear.” His door was shut and he could hear not only the man’s voice but the street and store noises, too. Some folks have gotten their hearing badly confused because their doors have not been shut enough. Man’s voice and God’s voice get mixed in their ears. They cannot distinguish between them. The problem is partly with the door. If you’ll shut that door you can hear.
In Secret
ANDREW MURRAY
Have you ever thought what a wonderful privilege it is to have the liberty of asking God to meet with you and to hear what you have to say? We should use such a privilege gladly and faithfully.
“When thou prayest,” says Jesus, “enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret” [Matthew 6:6]. This means two things. 1) Shut the world out; withdraw from all the thoughts and concerns of the day. 2) Shut yourself in alone with God to pray in secret. Let this be your chief object in prayer, to realize the presence of your heavenly Father. Let your goal be: “Alone with God.”
Being alone in His presence and praying to the Father in secret is only the beginning. Come to Him in the full assurance that He knows how you long for His help and guidance. He will listen to you.
Then follows the great promise of verse 6: “And thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.” Your Father will see to it that your prayer is not in vain. Prayer in secret will be followed by the secret working of God in my heart.
Go into Your Room
JOHN WESLEY
All who desire the grace of God are to wait for it, first, in the way of prayer. This is the express direction of our Lord Himself. In His Sermon on the Mount, after explaining at length of what religion consists and describing the main branches of it, He adds, “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: for every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened” (Matthew 7:7–8; Luke 11:9–10). In the plainest manner, we are here directed to ask in order to receive, or as a means of receiving; to seek, in order to find the grace of God, the pearl of great price; and to knock, to continue asking and seeking, if we would enter into His kingdom.
That no doubt might remain, our Lord gives a peculiar parable of a father who desires to give good gifts to his children, concluding with these words, “How much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?” (Luke 11:13).
Jesus gives a direction to pray, with a positive promise that by this means we shall obtain our request: “Enter into thy closet, and … pray to thy Father which is in secret; and [He] … shall reward thee openly” (Matthew 6:6).
Entering the Inner Chamber
ANDREW MURRAY
When he came down from the mount … Moses wist not that the skin of his face shone while he talked with him.
EXODUS 34:29
Close and continued prayer fellowship with God will in due time leave its mark and be evident to those around us. Just as Moses did not know that his face shone, we ourselves will be unaware of the light of God shining from us. The sense of God’s presence in us may often cause others to feel ill at ease in our company. However, true believers will prove by humility and love that they are indeed persons like those around them. And yet there will be the proof that they are people of God who live in an unseen world.
The blessings of communion with God can easily be lost by entering too deeply into communion with people. The spirit of inner prayer must be carried over into a holy watchfulness throughout the day. We do not know at what hour the enemy will come. This continuance of the morning watch can be maintained by quiet self-restraint, by not giving the reins of our lives over to our natural impulses.
When the abiding sense of God’s presence has become the aim of the morning hour, then with deep humility and in loving conversation with those around us, we will pass on into the day’s duties with the continuity of unbroken fellowship. It is a great thing to enter the inner chamber, shut the door, and meet the Father in secret. It is a greater thing to open the door again and go out to enjoy God’s presence—which nothing can disturb.