FOR

Lesson XXVIII.

PAUL'S PRAYER.

OR this cause I bow my knees unto the Father from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, that ye may be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inward man; that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; to the end that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be strong to apprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, that ye may be filled unto all the fulness of God.

EPHESIANS, chapter three.

L. What is Prayer?

PAUL'S PRAYER.

Although this lesson is called "Paul's Prayer," it is not altogether certain that the letter from which it comes is written by Paul. If, as seems not unlikely, it is from some unknown hand, it becomes all the more interesting, as showing us that the spirit it breathes was not in one man alone, but belonged to others in those early churches.

The old idea of prayer as a request that God do for us something which he otherwise would not have done ought by this time to be left behind.

In its essence, prayer is the habit of dwelling on those desires which rightly come to us in the moments when we seek to feel that our unseen Father is near us. So taken, no trivial or selfish thought can fill our minds, but those only which we feel to be the highest. The very attempt to make such wishes clear, and to voice them in words, if we will, strengthens all in us by which we are most truly his children.

It is in some such sense that we best get at the meaning of what this "prayer " means. Think what it meant for the writer to be able to say that what he most of all desired when he felt himself alone with the Father of all was what he has here so beautifully laid down.

II. What if This were our Chief Desire?

Think what it would mean if day by day, as the day ends perhaps, we were able to let such wishes rise in our hearts. What, if, when we gather together to worship, prayer were no mere official part of a service, but the common endeavor to let all that belongs to our highest life come quietly into consciousness. How it would deepen and strengthen our real life! How truly we might say that so to pray is its own answer! Lesser things lose their power. The unworthy part of life shows itself in its true littleness. We are more ready to live the life which draws us in high moments. Prayer is getting to feel the power of the divine life, which we only partly understand.

In some such way as this, let us look at the noble aspiration

which the writer tells his brethren rose in his heart at the thought of the need which was his and theirs.

III. That the Divine Life may grow Strong in us.

We are children of the infinite goodness and love, of which all human life at its highest is only an imperfect expression. We only know what life means in the measure in which this wealth of divine life becomes ours. It is weak at first. We have to battle against selfishness. What is less good often appeals to us more strongly because it is near. But in high moments, when we are true to ourselves, what can we desire half so good as that the best, kindest, largest life in us may grow strong? That in time things which seem difficult may grow easy? That what seems like denial of self now may come to be just the intense delight of being true to ourselves? That life now so weak and poor may come to be like the great tide of the infinite life coursing through us? That we may "be strengthened with power through his spirit in the inward man"? That our real life may come to be natural, spontaneous, instinctive, till all that is less worthy loses its hold?

That is manhood as the writer thought of it. It was in the strength of a great truth like this that men were built up whom no terror could make afraid, to whom religion became delight in finding how noble life really is.

IV. The Growth of the Spirit of Confidence.

Confidence, faith, is half the battle. That which most often holds us back is the half-defined sense that these things are far out of reach. Ideal dreams, if you will, but belonging to a world which is not this common world.

But it is intensely real to thousands like us. And it has become real through faith. Before us on the road are the great and good of all ages. Men and women like ourselves, who have been persuaded to try to become strong and noble and true by seeing how life grew to be noble and true in the great Teacher himself. His message and theirs to each one of us is that, if we will only try for it, we, too, may come to know the delight of growing into splendid natural strength of character. We shall fail again and again. But never mind. the habit of assuring ourselves that the good end, just as it has grown to be strongest of all in others and in Jesus himself.

Keep on. Get into

in us will out in the

We do feel that the best in us is, after all, our real nature.

When we lose hold of that, let us get into the quiet presence of those who have gone before us on the journey and take heart. That is what faith means. Faith that the Christ spirit, which is our own real life, will at length come to dwell with us as the constant, habitual, beautiful temper of our life. After all, is it not just letting the infinite, divine energy which is back of everything rise in us as our own true life?

V. The Fulness of Life.

When we rise to such thoughts, it does seem as though all the world were but the slow process by which the divine fulness comes to expression. Low life everywhere giving place to higher is the order of the universe. The plant cannot be final. The animal is higher. But there is no stopping there. Man has to rise out of the animal. The fulness of life must needs find some larger expression. And we are part of the process. It is not we who, in our own strength, are striving against nature. It is only the whole power of life trying in us and through us to rise to something higher still.

Out of his own experience the writer tells us how we may come to understand that, as life rises, it grows simpler and kinder, till the little selfish life is left behind and we come to get hold of the meaning of the true human life of love of all divine things and of all men. Life is no weary task. It is only learning as children learn how to grow into fuller delight and closer kinship with one another.

VI. Prayer may Help.

Put it in what form you will, merely to keep remembering what is so clear and real to us in Jesus and in every noble human life does make it more possible for us. Lesser things crowd it out. But in quiet hours, perhaps most easily in church, when we gather in the name of the unseen Father, what if we were to set ourselves again and again toward this ideal? One thing is sure. We should grow towards it, and find for ourselves how true it is. We never once try but we are already nearer it. To what fulness that love of our noblest life as we see it in Jesus may grow "passeth all understanding."

Lesson XXIX.

THE WHOLE ARMOR OF GOD.

FINALLY, be strong in the Lord, and in the

strength of his might.

Put on the whole

armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. Wherefore take up the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and, having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; withal taking up the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the evil one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

EPHESIANS, chapter six.