“For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen” (2 Cor. 1:20).
“Who through faith . . . obtained promises” (Heb. 11:33).
The precious promises of our great God are expressly intended to be taken to Him, and exchanged for the blessing which they guarantee. Prayer takes the promise to the Bank of Faith, and obtains the golden blessing. Mind how you pray. Make real business of it. Let it never be a dead formality. Some people pray a long time, but do not get what they are supposed to ask for, because they do not plead the promise in a truthful, businesslike way. If you were to go into a bank, and stand an hour talking to the clerk, and then come out again without your cash, what would be the good of it? If I go to a bank, I pass a check across the counter, take up my money, and go about my business: that is the best way of praying. Ask for what you want, because the Lord has promised it. Believe that you have the blessing, and go forth to your work in full assurance of it. Go from your knees singing, because the promise is fulfilled: thus will your prayer be answered. It is not the length of your prayer, but the strength of your prayer which wins with God; and the strength of prayer lies in your faith in the promise which you have pleaded before the Lord.—C. H. Spurgeon.
I have a never-failing bank,
A more than golden store,
No earthly bank is half so rich,
How can I then be poor?
Sometimes my Banker smiling says:
“Why don’t you often come?
And when you draw a little note,
Why not a larger sum?
“Why live so niggardly and poor?
Your bank contains a-plenty;
Why come and take a one-pound note
When you might have a twenty?”
Because my Banker is so rich,
I have no cause to borrow;
I’ll live upon my cash today,
And draw again tomorrow.
—Unknown.