For a condensed version of Jonathan Edwards’ call to prayer see http://www.sbaoc.org/blog/?page_id=762 or go to www.sbaoc.org and go to “BLOG” and then “a call to prayer.”
James 5:16 – “The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much. 17 Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the earth for three years and six months. 18 Then he prayed again, and the sky poured rain and the earth produced its fruit.”
When the devil cannot keep us from a good work, he labors by all means to make us proud of it. Henry Smith
Men are more unwilling to part with their righteousness than with their sins. Stephen Charnock
“The Pharisee stood and was praying this to himself: ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other people” (Luke 18:11). Pride and prayer are as opposite of each other as light and darkness. Pride looks to and relies on self while true prayer looks to and relies on God. Pride will pray, but like the Pharisee who prayed to himself rather than God. Pride will pray, but in order to be honored by men. “When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men” (Matthew 6:5). Pride will pray, but to seek the interests of self rather than the interests of Christ (Phil 2:21). Pride will pray, as virtually all religions have prayer as part of the religion, but it will be a ritual or a prayer to the great I-dol self.
While the heart is proud, true prayer is not possible. When true prayer is taking place, it is like the light displacing the darkness and so pride must be driven from the heart as it cannot reside in a heart that is truly praying. This is why II Chronicles 7:14 says this: “and My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” The heart must be humbled in order to truly pray because the proud heart will seek self and not the face of God. The proud heart will be blinded to its sin and will not turn from its wicked ways.
In each and every thing that the soul does it will either seek God or self. Pride and self are really the same thing as self must be pumped up with pride in order to seek self rather than God. The soul will have a primary motive in all that it does. “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other” (Matthew 6:24). In Christianity prayer is to be to and for God because the Greatest Commandment is to love God with all of the being and from that love one is to love others. In prayer, then, the one praying cannot serve two masters with a whole heart. God is either loved or hated in prayer and we are either devoted to or despise God in prayer. God is not honored if we just offer words that we call prayer, but instead we can only pray if we truly love Him and He is the One loved and self is hated. Luke 14:26 tells us that we cannot be His disciple if we don’t hate our own life: “If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple.” Can we claim to be His disciple and pray if we love and seek self in prayer rather than the glory of God in love?
It is easy to see prayer as nothing more than a form of seeking self in false religions, but it is harder to see our own prayers as self-seeking when we have the truth of the Gospel. As the Israelites of old bowed to false idols to obtain what their sinful hearts desired, so today many bow in supposed prayer to what they think of as God to seek the I-dol of self to obtain the desires of self. The desires of self can be money, honor, or religious things. Religious self can also be served in seeking revival. The fallen heart can desire revival for greater numbers and larger offerings. The fallen heart can desire to pray for revival for the things of self. That is to seek self and despise God. It is to be in the full service of the great I-dol of self and is an attempt to use God to gain the sinful desires of self. When a soul seeks God for the service of the sins of self, it cannot be a holy God that is being prayed to and a non-holy God is no God at all. There appears to be a massive amount of idolatry that goes on under the guise of Christianity today because a holy God is not being sought out of love but a false god is being sought for the things of self.
Let us stop deceiving ourselves. There will be no true revival in our land apart from true prayer. There will be no true prayer in our hearts until self is denied and pride is repented of. It is easy to just do the motions of prayer and say orthodox words, but true prayer will not happen until the great I-dol of self has been repented of. This requires inner agony of soul at the hand of God. Do we really desire true prayer and true revival in our day? We will not desire it, much less truly pray for it, apart from a true denial of self given by grace. Let us not think that true revival will come apart from broken and self-denying hearts given to seeking God for Himself in prayer.
God Loves... Himself 
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