| The Joy of Service |
Chapter 16 |
Page 6 |
We can really know but little of the lives about us. It is scarcely safe even to try to help another by changing his condition or circumstances. We may only mar the Master’s work in him if we try to make life easier for him. It is better that, as we pray, we let God do what His wisdom knows is best for him.
But we should never cease our intercession. We have not a friend who does not need our prayer for something. We do not know how much of the blessing wrought by Christ when He was on earth came through His prayers. He spent whole nights in supplication. On His heart He carried the burden of human sorrow and human sin, and went continually with it to His Father. Then we are told that His work now in heaven for His people is continual intercession. All the blessings that come to us these days come in answer to the pleading of our great High Priest. Much of our work as Christians likewise should be intercession. People need our prayers. We are not altogether faithful to the friend for whom we do not pray. “Pray for whom thou lovest,” says an old writer; “thou wilt never have any comfort of his friendship for whom thou dost not pray.”
Perhaps many of us are in danger of overlooking this part of our duty towards others. If only we realized the danger in which our friends are living, even when all things appear bright about them, when they are walking in flowery paths, we would never cease our supplication for them. We sorrow, with breaking heart, over our dead, who have fallen asleep in Jesus; we do not know that ofttimes there is far more reason for sorrow over our living.
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