The Cross in Prayer

At that day you shall ask in My Name. John 16:26

We are too much given to thinking of the Cross as some-
thing we have to get through; we get through it only in
order to get into it. The Cross stands for one thing only
for us--a complete and entire and absolute identification
with the Lord Jesus Christ, and there is nothing in which
this identification is realized more than prayer. 

'Your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before 
you ask Him.' Then why ask? The idea of prayer is not in 
order get answers from God; prayer is perfect and complete 
oneness with God. If we pray because we want answers, we 
will get huffed with God. The answers come every time, but 
not always in the way we expect, and spiritual huff shows a 
refusal to identify ourselves with our Lord in prayer; we are 
here to be living monuments of God's grace.

'I say not that I will pray the Father for you: for the Father 
Himself loveth you.' Have you reached such an intimacy with 
God that the Lord Jesus Christ's life of prayer is the only ex-
planation of your life of prayer? Has our Lord's vicarious life 
become your vital life? 'At that day' you will be so identified 
with Jesus that there will be no distinction.

When prayer seems to be unanswered, beware of trying to fix 
the blame on someone else. That is always a snare of Satan. 
You will find there is a reason which is a deep instruction to 
you, not to anyone else. Oswald Chambers

Reader, I am always challenged by Oswald Chambers. His
messages are from God's perspective, not mine.