Prayer is the Greater Work – Today's My Utmost Reading

I received my copy of “My Utmost for His Highest” as a graduation present from high school. This book was a wonderful source of devotional material early on in my walk with Christ. Today’s entry has one of the greatest quotes on prayer: “… prayer is the greater work.” Today, I want to bring this classic before many of you again.

As you read through this entry, let us know what stood out to you in the comments below. I personally love the encouragement to pray, the reassurance prayer is effective, and the reminder of how we come to God in prayer. In such a short entry, we are hit with a deep well of inspiration. May this bless you as it has me.

From My Utmost For His Highest by Oswald Chambers

“‘He will do even greater things than these
because I am going to the Father.'”
— John 14:12

Prayer does not equip us for greater works—prayer is the greater work. Yet we think of prayer as some commonsense exercise of our higher powers that simply prepares us for God’s work. In the teachings of Jesus Christ, prayer is the working of the miracle of redemption in me, which produces the miracle of redemption in others, through the power of God. The way fruit remains firm is through prayer, but remember that it is prayer based on the agony of Christ in redemption, not on my own agony. We must go to God as His child, because only a child gets his prayers answered; a “wise” man does not.

Prayer is the battle, and it makes no difference where you are. However God may engineer your circumstances, your duty is to pray. Never allow yourself this thought, “I am of no use where I am,” because you certainly cannot be used where you have not yet been placed. Wherever God has placed you and whatever your circumstances, you should pray, continually offering up prayers to Him. And He promises, “Whatever you ask in My name, that I will do…” Yet we refuse to pray unless it thrills or excites us, which is the most intense form of spiritual selfishness. We must learn to work according to God’s direction, and He says to pray. “Pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.”

There is nothing thrilling about a laboring person’s work, but it is the laboring person who makes the ideas of the genius possible. And it is the laboring saint who makes the ideas of his Master possible. When you labor at prayer, from God’s perspective there are always results. What an astonishment it will be to see, once the veil is finally lifted, all the souls that have been reaped by you, simply because you have been in the habit of taking your orders from Jesus Christ.