Prayer Power Key: Love (1)

PRAYER AND LOVE

Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone; so that your Father, who is in heaven, may also forgive you your transgressions. Mark 11:25

THESE words follow immediately on the great prayer-promise, `All things whatsoever ye pray, believe that ye have received them, and ye shall have them.’ We have already seen how the words that preceded that promise, `Have faith in God,’ taught us that in prayer all depends upon our relation to God being clear; these words that follow on it remind us that our relation with people must be clear too.

Love to God and love to our neighbor are inseparable: the prayer from a heart, that is either not right with God on the one side, or with men on the other, cannot prevail. Faith and love are essential to each other. We find that this is a thought to which our Lord frequently gave expression. In the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:23,24), when speaking of the sixth commandment, He taught His disciples how impossible acceptable worship to the Father was if everything were not right with the brother:

`If you are offering your gift at the altar, and there remember that your brother has anything against you, leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.’

And so later, when speaking of prayer to God, after having taught us to pray, ‘Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors,’ he added at the close of the prayer:

`If you forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.’
At the close of the parable of the unmerciful servant He applies His teaching in the words:

`So shall also my Heavenly Father do unto you, if ye forgive not every one his brother from your hearts.’

And so here, beside the dried-up fig tree, where He speaks of the wonderful power of faith and the prayer of faith, He all at once, apparently without connection, introduces the thought, ‘Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against any one; so that your Father, who is in heaven, may forgive you your transgressions.’

The first lesson taught here is that of a forgiving disposition. We pray, ‘Forgive, even as we have forgiven.’ If God dealt with us after our sins, not one prayer could be heard. The deep sure ground of answer to prayer is God’s forgiving love. When it has taken possession of the heart, we pray in faith. But also, when it has taken possession of the heart, we live in love.

God’s forgiving disposition, revealed in His love to us, becomes a disposition in us; as the power of His forgiving love shed abroad and dwelling within us, we forgive even as He forgives. If there be great and grievous injury or injustice done us, we seek first of all to possess a Godlike disposition; to be kept from a sense of wounded honor, from a desire to maintain our rights, or from rewarding the offender as he has deserved.

Continue to Part 2 of Prayer and Love