10/17/2025 – “The Key of the Greater Work” / “… I say to you, he who believes in Me, …. greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father” John 14:12).// Comment: In 2023, I posted a “what-if” query: If you could get everyone to read and reflect on say seven posts the entire year, what would they be?” Well, this devotion from the messenger, Oswald Chambers, would have to be one of them for 2025!
“Prayer does not equip us for greater works — prayer is the greatest 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 (see Matthew 11:25).
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 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…” (14:13). (*A- comment below) 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”. (Matthew 9:38).
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.”
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Soli Deo Gloria!
*(A) – Again, do we really believe what we say we believe is really true? God’s Word is infallible. Therefore, this and so many other verses on prayer reiterating the same promise, is certainly true. So, even if we pray and the prayer seems unfulfilled, it will be answered, perhaps far beyond our request. We just may not see it in this short life lasting a breath. Bottom line: The LORD’s omnipotence; omniscience, and omnibenevolence (His love!) is way beyond our comprehension! (Infinitely so!)