Continual Burnt Offering: Daily Meditations, July 4 (9:29)
“This kind can come forth by nothing but by prayer and fasting” — Mark 9:29.
BACK of all effective service there must ever be a life of prayer. It is only as we ourselves are in touch with God that we can be channels through which divine power and blessing will flow forth to others.
No amount of activity, nor of sincere desire to help, can make up for lack of communion with God. Of old the Levites, who represented ministry, waited on the priesthood, which speaks of worship (Num. 3:9, 10). “This kind goeth not out but by prayer.” Prayer is the recognition of our own helplessness and our appropriation of divine energy, which works in and through the self-judged, obedient believer to the glory and praise of God. This, too, is true fasting—the denial of self and ceasing from all fleshly confidence.