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DECEMBER: The Victory of Faith

December 20

WE ARE EXHORTED TO PRAY

And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us.
1 John 5:14

We must be exceptionally careful in the matter of comparing Scripture with Scripture. The Bible never contradicts itself. We must never base our doctrine upon one statement only; or to put it in another way, our doctrine must never be so formulated as to be in conflict with any other statement of Scripture or to contradict any other clear and obvious scriptural teaching.

Then, having done that, we come to certain conclusions. One conclusion is that there is an element of mystery about this question of prayer; it is one of those aspects of God’s gracious dealings with us that is beyond our understanding. Now I feel like saying, “Thank God for that!” I mean that in an ultimate and absolute sense you and I simply cannot reconcile God’s omniscience and foreknowledge and sovereignty with this fact of prayer that we find so clearly taught in Scripture.

But there are so many other things one cannot understand. I cannot understand how a holy God would ever forgive or can ever forgive a single soul. I cannot understand it, but thank God, I believe it! I cannot understand the eternal mind and heart, but I thank God for a revelation that assures me that God can be just and a justifier of the ungodly. And there are many other instances and illustrations that I could give of exactly the same thing, and this question of prayer is one of them. In an ultimate philosophical sense there is an element of mystery about it, but praise God, we are not left with philosophy. We have a Gospel that comes to us in its simplicity and tells us what to do. So though our little minds cannot understand it philosophically, there is nothing that is so plain and clear in Scripture as that we are taught and exhorted to pray. Go through the Scriptures, and notice the frequency of the exhortations to pray.

A Thought to Ponder
Prayer is one of those aspects of God’s gracious dealings with us that is beyond our understanding.

From Life in God, p. 116.




Today’s devo is taken from Walking with God Day by Day © 2003 by Good News Publishers. All rights reserved. Used by permission of Crossway Books, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

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Walking with God Archive

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