I give Thee thanks today for This Thy Greatest gift.
For my Lord’s days on earth:
For the record of His deeds of love:
For the words He spoke for my guidance:
For His obedience unto death:
For the presence of His Holy Spirit with me now.
Grant the remembrance of the Blessed Life that was lived out on this common earth.
His eagerness to minister:
His sympathy with suffering:
His bravery in facing His own suffering:
His meekness:
His simplicity:
His serenity of spirit:
His reliance on Thee.
Andrew Murray Day 3
Pray to thy Father, which is in secret
Or Alone with God
But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thine inner chamber, and having shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret and thy Father which seeth in secret shall recompense thee.
MATTHEW 6:6
After Jesus had called His first disciples, He gave them their first public teaching in the Sermon on the Mount. He there expounded to them the kingdom of God, its laws and its life. In that kingdom God is not only Kind, but Father; He not only gives all, but is Himself all.
Moses gave neither command nor regulation with regard to prayer: even the prophets say little directly of the duty of prayer; it is Christ who teaches to pray.
And the first thing the Lord teaches His disciples is that they must have a secret place for prayer; every one must have some solitary spot where he can be alone with his God. He has already taught us at Samaria that worship is no longer confined to times and places; that worship, spiritual true worship, is a thing of the spirit and the life; the whole man must in his whole life be worship in spirit and truth. And yet He wants each one to choose for himself the fixed spot where He can daily meet him. That inner chamber, that solitary place is Jesus’ schoolroom.
A teacher is always anxious that his schoolroom should be bright and attractive, filled with the light and air of heaven, a place where pupils long to come, and love to stay. In His first words on prayer in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus seeks to set the inner chamber before us in its most attractive light. The first thing in closet-prayer is: I must meet my Father. The light that shines in the closet must be: the light of the Father’s countenance.
Pray to the Father which is in secret. To the man who withdraws himself from all that is of the world and man, and prepares to wait upon God alone, the Father will reveal Himself. As he forsakes and gives up and shuts out the world, and the life of the world and surrenders himself to be led of Christ into the secret of God’s presence, the light of the Father’s love will rise upon him. And so we are taught, at the very outset of our search after the secret of effectual prayer, to remember that it is in the inner chamber, where we are alone with the Father, that we shall learn to pray aright.
Tim Cameron Writings 