{"id":30705,"date":"2023-02-02T10:44:51","date_gmt":"2023-02-02T18:44:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=30705"},"modified":"2023-02-02T14:29:49","modified_gmt":"2023-02-02T22:29:49","slug":"pray-without-ceasing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/pray-without-ceasing\/","title":{"rendered":"Pray Without Ceasing"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was intrigued this week with the readings of Evangelicalism in Modern Britain<\/em> [1] and Evangelicalism and Capitalism <\/em>[2]. The readings cover a broad span of material that could potentially be written about in this post including the Bebbington Quadrilateral which is mentioned in both writings. The first book, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain had a section on Keswick and the holiness movement of Evangelicalism in the 1800’s. I have a particular interest in this period because of its connection to missions and the incredible missionaries that it produced. I wrote last week of Amy Carmichael. She was closely connected to Keswick and attended its conventions. In Bebbington’s chapter on this topic, he mentioned George Muller and the Plymouth Brethren. It’s this topic that I would like to write about this week, coupled with unceasing prayer.<\/p>\n

George Muller<\/strong><\/p>\n

George Muller was born in Germany in 1805. [3] He was an evangelist and a missionary. His work was primarily with orphans. He began this work in 1836 when he was just 31 years old. At that time he had 130 orphans under his care. [4] In 1845, his ministry had doubled to 300 children and so he began building new home for them that was completed in 1849. [5]<\/p>\n

By 1870, when he was 65 years old, he had 1722 orphans living with him! Just a year later, it would grow to nearly 1850. [6] The most fascinating fact about his life is that in all of his years of ministry, and serving these children, George Muller never once made a request for financial support. [7] Nor did he ever go into debt, even when building homes for them to live in. It’s astounding! He frequently received donations of money, food, or other items needed right at the moment of need. He was a man of constant prayer. He took the scripture “pray without ceasing” [8] to heart.<\/p>\n

Once when the children in the orphanage had no food to eat, George Muller began praying about the situation. While he was praying, the local baker stopped by with bread, enough to feed all of the orphans. While they were at the door speaking, a milk cart broke down in front of the orphanage. The driver gave all of the milk to George otherwise it would go bad. All of the children were well fed right on time. [9]<\/p>\n

George Muller credits his position on praying and his spiritual life in general to his mid 20s when he “came to prize the bible alone as his standard of judgment”. [10] It is this attitude of prayer and the word I would like to focus on next.<\/p>\n

Praying without Ceasing<\/strong><\/p>\n

John Piper is a famous author. He was interviewed on the Desiring God blog about this idea of praying without ceasing. He suggested three ways that we too can pray without ceasing.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. We need to have a spirit of dependence on God. [11] This means that even when we are not kneeling in prayer, we should have a deep, abiding dependence on God to meet our needs. It ought to be the essence of our faith in Him. [12]<\/li>\n
  2. Our praying should be repeated and frequent. [13] We should pray repeatedly and we should pray often. It doesn’t have to be verbally, always, every second or on our knees. But it does need to be often and over and over.<\/li>\n
  3. We must stay steadfast. [14] This means we cannot give up on praying. It also means, sometimes the answer isn’t what we want it to be, yet we must press on praying. We need to remember that no is also an answer at times.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    In conclusion, lean on God all the time. Call on him repeatedly and often. Never give up on looking to him for help.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    ______________________________________________________________________<\/p>\n

    [1] Bebbington, David. 2005. Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s<\/i>. Transferred to digital printing. London: Routledge.<\/p>\n

    [2] Jason Paul Clark, \u201cEvangelicalism and Capitalism: A Reparative Account and Diagnosis of Pathogeneses in the Relationship\u201d (2018). Faculty Publications \u2013 Portland Seminary. 132. https:\/\/digitalcommons.georgefox.edu\/gfes.<\/p>\n

    [3] Steer, Roger. 1981. George M\u00fcller, Delighted in God!<\/i> Rev. ed. Wheaton, Ill.: H. Shaw.<\/p>\n

    [4] Ibid<\/p>\n

    [5] Ibid<\/p>\n

    [6] Ibid<\/p>\n

    [7] Ibid<\/p>\n

    [8] Crossway Bibles, ed. 2007. ESV: Study Bible: English Standard Version<\/i>. ESV text ed. Wheaton, Ill: Crossway Bibles, 1027.<\/p>\n

    [9] Steer, Roger. 1981. George M\u00fcller, Delighted in God!<\/i> Rev. ed. Wheaton, Ill.: H. Shaw.<\/p>\n

    [10] Ibid<\/p>\n

    [11] John Piper, “How Do I Pray Without Ceasing?” September 2016. February 2023. Link<\/a><\/p>\n

    [12] Ibid<\/p>\n

    [13] Ibid<\/p>\n

    [14] Ibid<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I was intrigued this week with the readings of Evangelicalism in Modern Britain [1] and Evangelicalism and Capitalism [2]. The readings cover a broad span of material that could potentially be written about in this post including the Bebbington Quadrilateral which is mentioned in both writings. The first book, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain had a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":159,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[571,1],"tags":[12,467,2574,608],"class_list":["post-30705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biography-drama-history","category-uncategorized","tag-bebbington","tag-clark","tag-george-muller","tag-keswick","cohort-dlgp01"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30705","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/159"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30705"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30705\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30727,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30705\/revisions\/30727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}