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Prayer and Conversion, by Pastor Charlie Handren

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Prayer and Conversion
By Pastor Charlie

Over the last few months, I have been writing about various aspects of prayer by directing our attention to particular portions of Scripture. Over the next few months, I will be writing about various principles of prayer by directing our attention to the experiences of such leading lights as George Müller, Andrew Murray, Hudson Taylor, and E. M. Bounds. My prayer for the coming devotionals is that we will see the work of God in the lives of others and grow in the desire to see God build prayer-stories in our lives as well. Let’s begin with George Müller’s conversion story.
George Müller grew up in a culturally Christian home, and thus by custom he regularly attended church and took the Lord’s supper twice per year. However, he did not hear a clear presentation of the gospel until he was twenty years old. About one month after he turned twenty, a friend named Beta invited him to a home Bible study. There he received the warm welcome of Christians and listened as they prayed, sang, read from the Scripture, and read a sermon from a local pastor. Müller later commented that, although those who prayed were far less educated than him, he could not pray as they did. There was a sincerity and warmth to their communion with God that was at once foreign and attractive to him.
When the meeting was finished and he walked home with his friend, he commented that “all our former pleasures are as nothing compared to this evening” (Autobiography of George Müller, Westminster Literature, page 10). He had experienced the joy of the Lord and the joys of this world were no longer enough to satisfy his soul. It took a few more weeks for Müller to bow his knees before Christ, but when he did he found Christ able to do what the church, his father, and his own will power were unable to do, namely, to save his soul, transform his desires, and give him lasting joy in life. “The individual who desires to have his sins forgiven, must seek for it through the blood of Jesus. The individual who desires to get power over sin, must likewise seek it through the blood of Jesus” (Autobiography, page 10).
From this time forward, Müller learned to pray and he learned that one of the great grounds of prayer is a personal relationship with Jesus Christ wherein one’s sins have been forgiven and one is transformed from an enemy of God to a child of God. For while, by grace, the Lord sometimes hears and answers the prayer of those who do not know him, his heart is to have communion with us and then grant his blessings to us. Indeed the heart of prayer is a heart that has been reunited with God in Christ.

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