Prayer and the Saint’s Spiritual Condition – According to J. C. Ryle, private diligent prayer is a gauge which will affect the Christian one way or another.
The following snippets and thoughts aren’t mine; they are taken from Ryle’s little book A Call to Prayer. You can download an eBook copy from Monergism HERE.
All great saints prayed
On the positive side, all great saints prayed. Ryle uses the examples of Moses, David, Daniel and Paul. All the great Church Fathers and Reformers made a habit of diligent private prayer.
Ryle warns against thinking that these people were somehow favored beyond the reach of ordinary saints. In fact Spurgeon stated that if his congregation ceased to pray for him, he would not be able to continue. Ryle further notes that,
Now I believe that this is a most dangerous mistake. I believe that spiritual as well as natural greatness depends in a high degree on the faithful use of means within everybody’s reach. Of course I do not say we have a right to expect a miraculous grant of intellectual gifts; but I do say, that when a person is once converted to God, his progress in holiness will be much in accordance with his own diligence in the use of God’s appointed means.
Prayer and backsliding
We constantly hear of perplexing Christian de-conversion stories. Ryle saw it in his time. He asks his readers if they pray. He considers the neglect of heart-felt private prayer to be one of the greatest causes of backsliding,
You may be very sure people fall in private long before they fall in public. They are backsliders on their knees long before they backslide openly in the eyes of the world.
And this,
It is a miserable thing to be a backslider. Of all unhappy things that can befall a person, I suppose it is the worst. A stranded ship, a broken-winged eagle, a garden overrun with weeds, a harp without strings, a church in ruins, all these are sad sights, but a backslider is a sadder still.
(Got Questions) What does it mean to watch and pray?
Jesus used the phrase watch and pray on a couple of different occasions. Once was the night before the crucifixion. Jesus took His disciples with Him to the Garden of Gethsemane, where He prayed that “this cup be taken from me” (Matthew 26:39). After the prayer, He found His disciples sleeping. He was grieved that they could not even pray with Him for an hour and warned them to “watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Matthew 26:41) … keep reading
See also Developing a Healthy Prayer Life
Maranatha!
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