"The Rights of God" # 9

Dependence Upon God (continued)

In James 5:17 we find a mention of Elijah. "Elijah was a man of like passions with us, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain; and it rained not on the earth for three years and six months. And he prayed again; and the heaven gave rain ..."

Elijah knew how to pray. Elijah had learned the secret of prayer. This inner fellowship with God gave him power so that he could step forward and say: "As the Lord God of Israel, before Whom I stand ..."

Have we ever tried to encapsulate the meaning of prayer in one word? It is "dependency!"

Anyone who has recognized his dependency upon God will pray. Whoever does not pray, does not recognize how dependent he is upon God. Our effectiveness for God depends upon the amount of our dependence upon God, and our prayer life will be the measure of such dependence.

It can be said of Elijah: the whole foundation of his life and service lay in his dependence upon God. God kept him in this attitude. It gave him security and power.

We can say much about Elijah. The Jews thought a lot of him. When they saw Jesus performing tremendous deeds, they thought Elijah had returned. Where was the secret of his greatness to be found, the secret of his powerful and victorious service? What lay behind his destruction of heathen worship, so that the people said again: "The Lord, He is the God!"? It is the absolute dependence upon God. It is that which we see at the brook Cherith, in the house of the widow, and everywhere he went.

Now, that is the starting point for all of God's work in us: nothing from the world, all from God! Before, God attempts to accomplish His great deeds through us, we must be brought to this point. In himself, Elijah was just as we are. But he was a powerful prophet, because in and of himself he was nothing. And he was nothing in and of himself because he was conscious of being completely dependent upon God.

Many think too highly of themselves. That makes them unfruitful for God. It hinders their life of prayer. The Lord must bring us low. Those whom God uses most are they who trust Him alone, who are poor in themselves, but consequently rich towards God; those who are in themselves weak, but consequently are strong in the Lord.

May the Lord succeed in preparing instruments, willing for such dependence, so that He is able to restore through them the testimony of His life in a time when nothing is more needful than precisely that: THE TESTIMONY OF HIS LIFE.

~T. Austin-Sparks~

(continued with # 10 -  (The Place of God In His House)