This is a weekly series with things I’m reading and pondering from Oswald Chambers. You can read the original seed thought here, or type “Thursdays With Oswald” in the search box to read more entries.
Symphonizing In Prayer
Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by My Father in heaven. (Matthew 18:19)
We need to know this simple, direct truth about praying in public. It is perilously easy to make public prayer the mere fringe of devotion to what we are pleased to think of as the real center of the meeting. Agreement in purpose on earth must not be taken to mean a predetermination to agree together to storm God’s fort doggedly till He yields. It is far from right to agree beforehand over what we want, and then go to God and wait, not until He gives us His mind about the matter, but until we extort from Him permission to do what we had made up our minds to do before we prayed; we should rather agree to ask God to convey His mind and meaning to us in regard to the matter.
Agreement in purpose on earth is not a public presentation of persistent begging which knows no limit, but a prayer which is conscious that it is limited through the moral nature of the Holy Spirit. It is really “symphonizing” on earth with our Father Who is in Heaven.
From Christian Disciplines
When Jesus taught us to pray He said we should say, “Your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.” God has a perfect plan in mind, and He wants us to be a part of that plan. So before we make up our mind to pray a certain way, and rally others around us to “agree in prayer” with us, we need to find out what God’s mind is on the matter. Our agreement needs to be with God, not with others.
The first Church in the Book of Acts could have easily become the first two churches right from the beginning. Why? Because of a deep disagreement that pitted two camps against each other.
Craig T. Owens 