Life's Ultimate Privilege - Day 2

This is a sample chapter from Life's Ultimate Privilege by Devern Fromke.

IN THE PAST YOU MAY HAVE WONDERED why you were making so little progress in your prayer-life? You have prayed and prayed, yet God hasn't seemed to answer? You have pondered whether your faith was too weak, whether your deepest motives were right, or if you were really asking according to God's will? At this point you have even begun to lack confidence in prayer, and though you have been keeping a daily appointment with God, you know there has actually been very little fellowship with Him.

You are not alone! Multitudes are asking this same question. But there is help today. First, we must uncover some of the reasons for our failure.

IN TODAY'S LESSON we ask this question:

How is it possible for someone to go through the daily routine of Bible reading and prayer, yet actually fall short of that fellowship which God most desires?

We shall see that our appointment times with God must be more than bringing our daily "want list." If we are to make any real progress in life's race we must become PURPOSE-CONSCIOUS. This means our praying must focus on what God is ultimately after; then we shall begin to realize why God is ever pressing us to a partnership with Himself. Yes, we shall begin to understand that there is something better than getting answers to our prayers.

OUR STORY related by Dr. D. M. Stearns will surely encourage you in praying for unsaved members of your family, and give you renewed confidence in God's faithfulness.

Something More Than Answers

MANY YEARS AGO at a Bible conference, the late Dr. D. M. Stearns had a question hour. One of the questions handed to him read:

"If you had prayed all your life for the salvation of a loved one, and then you got word that that person had died without giving any evidence of repentance--having lived a sinful life--what would you think, both of prayer itself and of the love of God and His promise to answer?"

It was a striking question, and everyone in the room wondered how he would respond.

"Well, dear sister," he began, "I should expect to meet that loved one in heaven, for I believe in a God who answers prayer, and if He put that exercise upon your heart to pray for that dear one, it was because He, doubtless, intended to answer it."

Then he told this story:

Many years ago there was a dear mother in Philadelphia who had a very wayward son. This young man, though brought up in the church, had never trusted Christ and had drifted into everything unholy. He had gone to sea and had become a very rough, careless, godless sailor.

One night his mother was awakened with a deep sense of need upon her heart. When fully awake, she thought of her son and was impressed that he was in great danger; as a result, she got up and prayed earnestly that God would undertake for her boy, whatever his need was.

She didn't understand it, but after praying for several hours, there came a sense of rest and peace, and she felt sure in her heart that God had answered. Getting back into bed, she slept soundly until the morning. Day after day she kept wondering why she had been awakened and had been moved to prayer, yet somehow she could not feel the need to pray for her son anymore; rather she praised God for something which she felt sure He had done for him.

Several weeks passed. One day the mother heard a knock at the door. When she opened the door--there stood her son! Entering the room he announced, "Mother, I'm saved!" Then he told her this amazing story.

He explained how a few weeks earlier, his ship had been tossed in mid-Atlantic by a terrific storm, and there seemed no hope of riding it through. One of the masts had snapped, and the captain called for the men to move out to cut it away. As they stepped out, he among them, cursing and reviling God because they had to be out in such an awful night cutting away this mast, suddenly the ship gave a lurch. A great wave caught the young man at that moment and swept him overboard.

As he struggled helplessly with the enormous power of the sea, the awful thought came to him, "I'm lost forever!" Suddenly he remembered a hymn that he had often sung in his boyhood days:

There's life in a look at the crucified One. 

There is life at this moment for thee:

Then look, sinner, look unto Him and be saved; 

Unto Him who was nailed to the tree.

He cried out in agony of heart, "Oh God, I do look. I look to Jesus." In that moment he was carried to the top of the waves and lost all consciousness.

Hours afterwards when the storm had subsided, and the men came out to clear the deck, they found him lying unconscious, crowded against a bulwark. Evidently, while one wave had carried him off the deck, another had carried him back again. The sailors took him into the cabin and gave him restoratives. When he came to, the first words from his lips were, "Thank God, I'm saved!" From that hour on he had an assurance of salvation that meant everything to him.

Having finished his story, the mother then told her son how she had prayed for him that very night. They discovered it was exactly at the time when he was in such a desperate plight that God had heard and answered.

"Now suppose," Dr. Stearns continued, "that young man's body had never been brought back to the ship. Suppose he had sunk down into the depths. People might have thought he was lost forever in his sin, but God in His loving kindness not only saved him, but permitted him to come back and give testimony of God's wonderful saving grace."

While we recognize this answer to prayer was sovereignly made known, we must also realize that there are other answers to prayer we shall never know about until we meet our Lord.(1)

In her years of patient praying for a wayward son, this mother was discovering that God is wholly trustworthy in answering her prayers, but He is . . .

SOMEONE MORE THAN AN ANSWERER.

He is more concerned that we come to know and trust Him as our Father than just as the lofty One in heaven who answers our prayers. Once we are convinced He is above all else our Father, who is wholly trustworthy in character, it will be difficult for us to ever question or doubt His wisdom and mercy in what He does. The lady, who claimed she had prayed "all these years," had seemingly missed the privilege of knowing who He "chiefly" is.

We can be sure the records in heaven include many similar incidents we will know nothing about, until God chooses to reveal them to us. But let us consider another incident.

A young serviceman named Brad was hitchhiking when picked up by a real-estate broker, Lew Masters. As they rode along, Brad led this businessman to receive Christ as his Saviour. Out of much appreciation, the older man gave Brad his card as they were about to part, urging him to look him up if he was ever in the Chicago area.

Five years passed before Brad had opportunity to visit Chicago and accept the invitation. And this was his amazing discovery: only a few minutes after they had parted that day, Lew Masters had been killed in an auto accident.

Now, you can hardly imagine Mrs. Masters' joy when she heard from Brad how her husband had received Christ as his Saviour just before his death. She said, "I had walked with Christ for many years and had prayed for my husband often. When he was killed, I thought God had not answered my prayers. Now for five years I've been out of fellowship with God--all because I thought He had failed me."(2) That day she was rescued from her bitterness and restored to fellowship.

We must repeat again: how utterly wrong it is to assume our prayers have not been answered. We do not know the whole story.

God alone knows every last chapter, and sometimes chooses to reveal its contents in His own timing . . . but when He doesn't. . . !

Perhaps He is pressing us to something more, something much better than just knowing Him as our "Prayer Answerer." From the beginning God's intention was to uniquely design us for fellowship with Himself. Listen! This is no small thing! Life's ultimate privilege is that through fellowship we can come to know God intimately. To truly know Who He is--is much better than receiving something from Him. As we have pictured in the diagram, God is ever pressing us to enjoy the larger box.

It is not God's desire to leave us in the small box. Of course it is proper that we come to our Father with daily petitions and expect to receive answers. Yet to continue this for a lifetime and never press on to intimate communion in knowing Him, His purposes, and His ways, would be most tragic.

So our Father will not allow us to remain in the smaller box; He will press us on to a participation in His purposes, and even beyond to the largest box where we become partners with Him in all His ways. WHAT AN INVITATION!

. . . to meet Him daily and share our needs and concerns, 

. . . to intimately know HIM, Who He chiefly is, 

. . . to participate with Him in His eternal purpose, 

. . . to become partners with Him in all His ways.

HOW BIG IS YOUR BOX? If you have determined to remain in the first small box, you have surely resisted the Father's pressing you on to new fellowship. Oh Lord, AWAKEN OUR HEARTS to appreciate our high calling. Imagine! We are invited to partnership with the God of the universe. What a privilege! To better understand this is the object of our 15-day journey together.

In one of our earlier books, THE ULTIMATE INTENTION, we have explained that God is, above all else, the Eternal Father who has purposed for Himself, a vast family of sons conformed to the image of our Lord Jesus. Since our Father God is Himself dedicated to realizing this eternal purpose, we also are invited to participate with Him in fulfilling this glorious purpose. Yet many who have recognized this revelation of His paternal purpose, must now press on to discover and embrace the splendor of His ways. Therefore our concern in these lessons is not only with the what: God's paternal purpose, but also with the how: OUR PARTNERSHIP IN HIS WAYS of fulfilling it.

Watchman Nee has written, ". . . When anyone through revelation really comes to see that God is God and that man is man, he can do no other than bow down and worship. . . . It is necessary to go a step further . . . to also adore His ways. We bow before Him in adoration for what He is in Himself, and we also accept with adoration all the ways He chooses to lead us and all the things it pleases Him to bring into our lives. We must learn to walk step by step; and if we walk before God we shall learn to adore His ways. Spiritually our entire future hinges on the matter of our worshipful acceptance of all His dealings with us."(3)

DISCOVERING AND EMBRACING HIS WAYS will require a lifetime. But especially in our praying we will need to understand and embrace His ways. Through increasing fellowship with Him we will more fully appreciate why He will say:

NO! or GROW! or SLOW! or GO!

Yes, we must see, perhaps patiently, how these four answers will increase our fellowship and press us into the larger box.

When God says an emphatic NO! it is usually because He has something different for us than what we have asked. A little boy begged his father to bring a bag of candy when he returned from a shopping trip, but instead he brought him a new bicycle. The apostle Paul asked the Lord to remove the thorn that was vexing him, but the Lord had something better. We recall how Paul prayed three times for this thorn to be removed, and the Lord said, ". . . My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness . . ." (2 Cor. 12:7-10). The Lord was telling Paul, "No, I am not going to remove the thorn, but I will give you sufficient grace so you can endure this thorn."

Was this not better? It might have taken some time for Paul to agree with this. Paul, like many today, wanted deliverance, but he received sufficient grace. God was not about to remove this tool He was using to keep Paul in check; instead He was offering him a greater measure of grace. How much better! Through this intimate fellowship, Paul was discovering another facet in God's character: He is the All-Sufficient One. And what is important, is that, while learning to know God, Paul himself was developing character.

When God says we must first GROW, it is because our Father insists on maturity. Consider again both women in the stories at the beginning of our lesson. Actually, God's own character was at stake when they doubted that a loving Father would answer their earnest pleas. Each one claimed she had "prayed long without an answer." Only God knows! It is not for us to judge their praying; let us be encouraged that even the most feeble efforts at praying receive God's full attention. He is a loving Father who bends His ear to the lisping of even the weakest and most uncertain cry of our lips.

Yet God is full of wisdom. There are those times when He is pressing us to move out of our "small box" mentality to His "larger box." Then we are forced to face this question: which should be more important . . .

getting our prayers answered or

getting to know the Lord?

For our Father to immediately answer our every prayer and leave His child in ignorance and immaturity is unthinkable. Can we imagine God allowing His child to approach the throne of grace, to dial in all the right information--such as praying in His name, for His glory, in faith, etc.--and then to immediately pick up the answer to his prayer? What a privilege! NO! What a come-short of all that God really intends. We must be encouraged that it is always right to expect prayer to be answered, yet it is also imperative that through much diligence and perseverance we come to know God.

I am quite convinced that it would be impossible to "pray all your life" and still not know God as a loving Father, whose wisdom can be trusted, whose promises can be proved as utterly true! Yet when He answers that we must GROW some more, it is because He must enlarge our vision to see as He sees.

Sometimes God says SLOW, which means there may be many others involved, and He will not violate the integrity of their own wills. So this means waiting, which is still another way in which we can grow and come to know the Lord. Consider George Mueller, the man of prayer to whom all the nations look with such admiration. James McConkey tells how Mueller had patiently prayed for five personal friends. After five years one came to Christ. In ten more years two more were saved. He prayed on for twenty-five years before the fourth man was saved. Until the time of Mueller's death, he had prayed for the fifth man almost fifty-two years. This man came to Christ a few months later.

Another friend, A. T. Pierson, asked Mueller a short time before he died, if he had asked anything of God that had not been granted. Mueller explained how he had prayed sixty-two years for two men to be converted, and neither of them had showed any signs of that happening. Then he was asked, "Do you expect God to convert them?"

"Certainly! Do you suppose that God would put upon His child for sixty-two years the burden of two souls if He had no purpose of their conversion?"

Shortly after this conversation, Mueller died. Dr. Pierson continues, "While preaching in his pulpit in Bristol, I referred to this. As I was going out, a lady said to me, 'One of those men was my uncle, and he was converted and died a few weeks ago. The other man was brought to Christ in Dublin . . . I understand.'"

CONSIDER GEORGE MUELLER'S FIVE REASONS why he believed his prayers for the unsaved must be answered:

1. I have had no shadow of doubt in praying for their salvation, knowing as I do that it is the Lord's will that they should be saved, for He ". . . will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth" (1 Tim. 2:4). "And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us" (1 Jn. 5:14).

2. I have never pleaded for their salvation in my own name, but in the all-worthy name of my precious Lord Jesus (Jn. 14:14), that is, on the ground of His merit and worthiness, and on that alone.

3. I have (always) believed in the ability and willingness of God to answer my prayers (Mk. 11:24).

4. I have not allowed myself (to continue) in known sin, for, "If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me" (Psa. 66:18).

5. I have continued in believing prayer for over fifty-two years, and shall so continue until the answer is given. "And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him. . . ?" (Lk. 18:7).

Then it becomes clear! God does answer prayer. Yes, not according to our whims, but His wisdom. Only through increasing fellowship with Him in His ways, can we joyfully embrace His NO! GROW! SLOW! or GO!

How much all of us are like little children who need the careful nurturing of our loving Father. How often I have personally thanked my Father, that He has not answered some of my prayers. At the time I was so convinced it was right, so right--that I should command Him according to the works of His own hands (Isa. 45:11). But He simply replied, "You need to grow some more!"

How well Theodore Monod illustrates this. He was telling a little friend about Jesus healing blind Bartimaeus. "And what," said he to the little boy, "would you have asked from Jesus if you had been blind?"

"Oh," said the child, with a glowing face and kindling eyes, "I should have asked Him for a nice little dog with a collar and chain to lead me about." Yes, too often like little children we ask for a seeing-eye dog instead of for eyes to see. And then we wonder why our Lord might say, "NO, I have something better;" or He might say, "When you GROW you may want to change your request." Then again, He may say, "SLOW, for I am getting some valuable work done in you and others while you patiently wait."

And best of all, sometimes God says "GO!" which means that He is ready to supply what we ask, and then as we take each new step in confidence--we can receive.

QUICKENING THROUGH GOD'S WORD

Finally, we understand why so many, who have preceded us in the race, have been gripped by this glorious privilege of coming to intimately know God through fellowship.

Paul wrote to the believers at Philippi, "That I might KNOW HIM . . ." (Phil. 3:10).

John said, "And this is life eternal, that they might KNOW THEE the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent" (Jn. 17:3).

Daniel prophesied, ". . . But the people that do KNOW THEIR GOD shall be strong, and do exploits" (Dan. 11:32).

Jeremiah warned, ". . . Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, . . . But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and KNOWETH ME, that I am the Lord . . ." (Jer. 9:23, 24).

David expressed this same longing in different words, "One thing have I desired of the LORD, that will I seek after; that I may dwell . . . behold . . . enquire. . . . When thou saidst, Seek ye my face; my heart said unto thee, THY FACE, LORD, WILL I SEEK" (Psa. 27:4-8). David longed to know Him--the One he had enjoyed during so many hours of intimate fellowship.

There are many others in Your Book who had this one passion: TO KNOW YOU MORE FULLY.

Henceforth, this same passion shall be mine!

AWAKEN MY HEART . . . with a new longing to KNOW You!

FATHER, I do acknowledge how often I have judged You according to my limited knowledge of what seemed best. I now can rest! You have not yet published the last chapter in every story, even though it has happened. Forgive me for my hasty, judgmental spirit, when I doubted Your wisdom or doubted that You even cared. Henceforth I shall confess Your faithfulness. All that I do know of You and of Your ways causes me to announce boldly that You are worthy; You are right even though I do not fully comprehend. Father, it is good to know that Your wisdom transcends the wisdom of men, and that You are wholly trustworthy and consistent in Your character.

What new encouragement! Now with new diligence I will pray for certain members of my own family who yet seem so indifferent to Your claims on their lives. If George Mueller could pray all those years, I will not faint, nor question Your wisdom. Help me to really know Your voice and to recognize when You are saying no, grow, slow, or go. I am more confident now, knowing that You have surely answered some requests I will not know about until that day in Eternity. But even more, Lord, I do want to live in the "largest box" where I am so one-with-You, that I become a partner in Your blessed ways. Even if it means much more stretching as I wait and persevere, it will be worthwhile. For above all else, I know that I am coming to KNOW YOU. Your ways are beyond finding out. How great You are! Even when I do not understand Your ways, I love You! Amen!

OVERFLOWING GRATITUDE:

How my heart wants to sing with Paul, as he exults in his exhortation to Timothy: "I KNOW WHOM [not what] I have believed. . . ." Yes, Paul--what ultimate privilege! And what has now just begun will continue throughout the ages! Glory! (Sing it with me.)

But I know whom I have believed,

And am persuaded that He is able

To keep that which I've committed

Unto Him against that day.

I know now why God's wondrous grace 

To me He hath made known,

And why unworthy--Christ in love 

Redeemed me for His own.

I know not how the Spirit moves,

Convincing men of sin, 

Revealing Jesus thro' the Word,

Creating faith in Him.

(James McGranahan)

PRAYER REQUESTSDATE ANSWERED