| The Building of Character |
Chapter 23 |
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Another reason why some persons cease to pray for those they have prayed for before is something in these friends or in their conduct that has hurt or grieved them. There seemed such a reason in Samuel’s case. He had given all his life to the interests of his people. He had spent all his years in serving them. It was good service; too, service which brougth incalculable blessing to their nation. Yet in his old age, when his hair had grown grey, he was set aside by the people he had served so loyally and so unselfishly. Samuel might have ceased now to pray for the people who had proved so ungrateful and who had treated him so unkindly, and he would have seemed to do right. They did not deserve to be longer loved and remembered in his prayers, he might have argued justly. May men would have grown bitter against the people who had so treated them. Instead of this, however, Samuel says he will not cease to pray for them; that it would be a sin against God for him to do this. No wrong treatment of him by them could absolve him from his duty of praying for them. Thus he illustrated the spirit of that love which found its complete revealing only in Christ.
Our duty of intercession is not limited to those who are kind and faithful to us. Any man can pray for those who are generous and loyal to him. But the sin of which Samuel spoke was ceasing to pray for those who had treated him most unworthily. The lesson for us is not less wide in its reach. We may not strike from our prayer-list those who have treated us with injustice or bitterness. Our Lord commands us to pray for those who despitefully use us. We sin against God if we cease to pray for the man who has harmed us and one us evil.
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