To be near unto God - pagina 301

God's child always prays in Jesus' name. He must do this, because irreconciled and unredeemed, he would find no listening ear with God, But even prayer in Jesus' name becomes a word without

meaning, when one does not first place himself before the face of the Holy One, and feels that of himself there is no approach to God, and that he only appears before God in Christ. In this connection the diflaculty is God's, omnipresence. The- very perception of faith that God is not bound to either time or place, but that he is everywhere present^ accounts for the fact, that one inclines to speak without first concentrating his thoughts upon God, placing him before the eyes, and seeking his presence until it is found. In his Word God teaches us otherwise. For though the Scripture reveals to us in most glorious terms the omnipresence of God, in behalf of prayer it can only mean, that wherever we are, we are always and everywhere able to find God. But it reveals with equal emphasis that in whatever place we are, we have to do with the living God, who besets us behind and before, who compasses our path and our lying down, and who is acquainted with all our ways (Ps. 139:5, 2). In addition to this it always points us upward. We must lift up our soul in prayer. Our prayerful thoughts must direct themselves to the heavens, where is a throne of grace, glorious with Divine It is the palace above whither our Majesty. prayers ascend. It is the living, personal God who our prayinclines himself to us and toward ing soul must turn. The imagination can lend no help in this, for God is a Spirit, and they that worship him, must

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