Monday, May 26, 2025

Book Review: The Ministry of Intercessory Prayer

In 2023, I began a concerted effort to increase my prayer life. I created and completed a prayer project interceding for each of my Facebook friends. In 2024, I continued using those prayer cards to pray for those individuals throughout the year. This year, my focus has shifted. I now dedicate most of my time to interceding for specific individuals, foremost my prodigal son. I am incorporating fasting (not well, mind you, but doing my best).

Andrew Murray's The Ministry of Intercessory Prayer holds plenty of instruction and motivation for prayer. Its chapters cover the lack of prayer, models for praying, importunity in prayer, effective prayer, praying in God's name, and revival. Even though I own this book, I did not highlight or underline in it. Still, I went back to glean a few quotes which I shared with Trevor to encourage him as he attempts to battle his demons and abide in the Lord.

"The power to pray the effectual prayer of faith depended upon the life in Christ. A man must give himself up to live as entirely in Christ and for Christ as the branch in the vine and for the vine.... This teaching naturally led to emphasizing the need of a life of entire consecration.... Only by a full surrender to the life of abiding, by yielding to the fullness of the Spirit's leading and quickening, can the prayer life be restored to a truly healthy state." He concludes, "A life abiding in Christ and filled with the Spirit, a life entirely given up as a branch for the work of the vine, has the power to claim these promises [John 15:7] and to pray the 'effectual prayer that availeth much.' Lord, teach us to pray!"

The book looks at Christ and Paul as examples of prayer. It offers an appendix with a month of daily suggestions for what to pray and how to pray. I appreciated the main sections of the book more than this "school of prayer" section, but others might gain from it more than I did. Again, as with the Torrey book, this is a standard classic on prayer, perfect for anyone wishing to enhance their prayer life.

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