I would that ye knew what great conflict I have for you.
—Colossians 2:1
Just as men who are undertaking a great thing in the world have to prepare themselves and use all their natural abilities to succeed, so Christians need to prepare themselves to pray with their whole hearts and strength. This is the law of the kingdom. Prayer requires the Christian to sacrifice his ease, his time, and his self. The secret of powerful prayer is sacrifice. It was the same with Christ Jesus, the Great Intercessor. It is written of Him, “When thou shalt make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed.…He shall see of the travail of His soul.…He shall divide the spoil with the strong; because He hath poured out His soul unto death” (Isaiah 53:10–12). In Gethsemane, “He had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears” (Hebrews 5:7). The psalmist said, “Let my prayer be set forth before Thee as incense; and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice” (Psalm 141:2).
Prayer is sacrifice. Our prayers have worth only from being rooted in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Just as He gave up everything in His prayer, “Thy will be done” (Matthew 6:10), so our posture and disposition must ever be the offering up of everything to God and His service.
A pious miner had a relative whom the doctor ordered to go to a nearby state in order to get well. But there was no money. The miner resolved to take the little money that he had and ventured to use it all. He procured a comfortable lodging at a few dollars per day for the invalid. He was content with a small shack for himself and lived on only a few pennies a day for an entire month. He spent much time in prayer until he got the assurance that the invalid would recover. On the last day of the month, the sick one was well. When the miner reached home, he said that he had now learned more than ever that the secret law and hidden power of prayer lay in self‑sacrifice.
Do we need to ask why we lack power in our prayers when there is so much reluctance to make the necessary sacrifice in waiting upon God? Christ, the Christ we trust in, the Christ who lives in us, offered Himself as a sacrifice to God. As this attitude lives and rules in us, we will receive power from Him as intercessors to pray the “effectual fervent prayer [that] availeth much” (James 5:16).