Prayer Quotes
For Your Edification
We must alter our lives in order to alter our hearts, for it is
impossible to live one way and pray another. (William Law)
It is good for us to keep some account of our prayers, that we may not
unsay them in our practice. (Matthew Henry)
There are more tears shed over answered prayers than over unanswered
prayers. (Teresa of Avila)
Since the days of Pentecost, has the whole church ever put aside every
other work and waited upon God for ten days, that the
Spirit’s
power might be manifested? We give too much attention to method and
machinery and resources, and too little to the source of power. (Hudson
Taylor)
There is no power like that of prevailing prayer, of Abraham pleading
for Sodom, Jacob wrestling in the stillness of the night, Moses
standing in the breach, Hannah pouring out her hurting heart, David
heartbroken with remorse and grief, Jesus in sweat of blood. Add to
this list from the records of the church your personal observation and
experience, and always prevailing prayer includes the cost of
perseverance and passion unto blood. But such prayer prevails. It turns
ordinary mortals into men of power. It brings the power of God to
specific situations and settings. It brings fire. It brings rain. It
brings life. It brings God, himself. (Samuel Chadwick)
I never prayed sincerely and earnestly for anything but it came at some
time; no matter at how distant a day, somehow, in some shape, probably
the least I would have devised, it came. (Adoniram Judson)
Grant that I may not pray alone with the mouth; help me that I may pray
from the depths of my heart. (Martin Luther).
The Church is looking for better methods; God is looking for better
men. The Holy Ghost does not flow through methods, but through men. He
does not come on machinery, but on men. He does not anoint plans, but
men . . . and so we ought to be men of prayer. (E. M. Bounds)
Our ordinary views of prayer are not found in the New Testament. We
look upon prayer as a means for getting something for ourselves; the
Bible idea of prayer is that we may get to know God Himself. (Oswald
Chambers)
There is not in the world a kind of life more sweet and delightful than
that of a continual conversation with God. (Brother Lawrence)
It is in the field of prayer that life's critical battles are lost or
won. We must conquer all our circumstances there. We must first of all
bring them there. We must survey them there. We must master them there.
In prayer we bring our spiritual enemies into the Presence of God and
we fight them there. Have you tried that? Or have you been satisfied to
meet and fight your foes in the open spaces of the world? (J. H. Jowett)
There
are
thousands of prayers daily offered that God does not answer. There are
faithless prayers. “He that cometh to God must believe that
he
is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek
him.”
There are selfish prayers, proceeding from a heart that is cherishing
idols. “If any man regard iniquity in his heart, the Lord
will
not hear him.” There are petulant, fretful prayers, murmuring
because of the burdens and cares of life, instead of humbly seeking
grace to endure them. Those who offer such petitions are not abiding in
Christ. They have not submitted their will to the will of God. They do
not comply with the condition of the promise, and it is not fulfilled
to them. They that are abiding in Jesus have the assurance that God
will hear them, because they love to do his will. They offer no formal,
wordy prayer, but come to God in earnest, humble confidence, as a child
to a tender father, and pour out the story of their grief and fears and
sins, and in the name of Jesus present their wants; they depart from
his presence rejoicing in the assurance of pardoning love and
sustaining grace.
What
poor
humans are we, that God must needs let us be driven into the stress of
necessity and helplessness because in no other way can He constrain us
to betake ourselves to prayer to Him! Yet it is even so. Do we pray
when the wind is a-beam, the skies fair, and our ship running free
before the breeze? No, but when the mast is overboard, the rudder gone,
and the ship in the trough – then we pray. Do we pray when
our
loved ones are in prosperity, health, and strength? No, but when the
sober-faced physician shakes his head, and says he has done all he can,
and death’s shadow settles down over the chamber of a
precious
one – then we pray. Strength is self-reliant and thinks it
needs
no God. But weakness is driven to God-reliance, and there learns the
secrets of the prayer life. Helplessness begets dependence. Dependence
leads to prayer, and prayer brings power. Out of our own insufficiency
into God’s sufficiency, by the pathway of prayer, is the
secret
of power. Wherefore self-strength is worse than weakness. For the weak
man learns to cling and pray. But the strong one stays self-assured and
misses God.
There
are two
kinds of prayer – the prayer of form and the prayer of faith.
The
repetition of set, customary phrases when the heart feels no need of
God, is formal prayer. We should be extremely careful in all our
prayers to speak the wants of the heart and to say only what we mean.
All the flowery words at our command are not equivalent to one holy
desire. The most eloquent prayers are but vain repetitions if they do
not express the true sentiments of the heart. But the prayer that comes
from an earnest heart, when the simple wants of the soul are expressed
just as we would ask an earthly friend for a favor, expecting that it
would be granted – this is the prayer of faith. The publican
who
went up to the temple to pray is a good example of a sincere, devoted
worshiper. He felt that he was a sinner, and his great need led to an
outburst of passionate desire, “God be merciful to me a
sinner.”
Psalm
139:23-24
- Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my anxious
thoughts; [24] and see if there be any hurtful way in me, and lead me
in the everlasting way.
Each
time your
spirit goes under and faints in the testing and trials which come to
you, you lose mastery over the powers of darkness, i.e. you get below
them instead of abiding above them in God. Every time you take the
earth standpoint – think as men think, talk as men talk, look
as
men look – you take a place below the powers of darkness. The
mastery of them depends upon your spirit abiding in the place above
them, and the place above them means knowing God's outlook, God's view,
God's thought, God's plan, God's ways. You do this by abiding with
Christ in God, through prayer, meditation on the Word and ways of God,
submission to the will of God, resisting the devil, and drawing ever
nearer to God – and more so after having moved a distance
away.
Now do you see how much of this is done in and along with
prayer?
(James
Fraser from Behind the
Ranges by Mrs. Howard Taylor)
The
Church
always fails at the point of self-confidence. When the Church is run on
the same lines as a circus, there may be crowds, but there is no
Shekinah. That is why prayer is the test of faith and the secret of
power. The Spirit of God travails in the prayer-life of the soul.
Miracles are the direct work of His power, and without miracles the
Church cannot live. The carnal can argue, but it is the Spirit of God
that convicts. Education can civilize, but it is being born of the
Spirit that saves. The energy of the flesh can run bazaars, organize
amusements, and raise millions; but it is the presence of the Holy
Spirit that makes our bodies and Christ’s Body a Temple of
the
Living God. The root-trouble of the present distress is that the Church
has more faith in the world and in the flesh than in the Holy Ghost,
and things will get no better till we get back to seeking His presence
and power. The breath of the four winds would turn death into life and
dry bones into mighty armies, but if it is to happen here, we must
pray, and pray together!
Samuel Chadwick
The
prayer-meeting is an institution which ought to be very precious to us,
and to be cherished by us as a Church, for to it we owe everything.
When our comparatively little chapel was all but empty, was it not a
well-known fact that the prayer-meeting was always full? And when the
Church increased, and the place was scarcely large enough, it was the
prayer meeting that did it all. When we then met at Exeter Hall, we
were a praying people, indeed; and when we entered into an even larger
arena, the Surrey Music-hall, what cries and tears went up to heaven
for the continued work of the Holy Spirit among us! And so it has been
ever since. It is in the spirit of prayer that our strength lies; and
if we lose this, the hair will be cut off from Samsons head, and
God’s Holy Church will become weak as water. And though we,
as
Samson did, go and try to shake ourselves as at other times when we
hear the cry, “The Philistines are upon you,” our
eyes will
be put out, and our glory will depart, unless we continue mightily and
earnestly in prayer.
Charles Spurgeon
If
God is the
center of attraction, the treasure for which we would sell everything
to obtain, it would not be long before we understood that prayer is the
path that leads to fellowship with God and needed help from God. Those
who see and practice this truth do not pray occasionally, not a little
at regular or at odd times; but they so pray that their prayers enter
into and shape their characters; they so pray as to affect their own
lives and the lives of others; they so pray as to make the influence of
the Church the current of the times. They spend much time in prayer,
not because they mark the shadow on the dial or the hands on the clock,
but because it is to them so momentous and engaging that they could
scarcely do otherwise.
We
are to cast
all of our care upon Him; and we have the reason: “For He
careth
for you.” Blessed position. How may I know whether I have
cast my
burden upon God? One says, by prayer! Well, right or wrong, just as you
understand it. Right, if it is believing prayer, if you exercise faith
in the power and willingness of God to carry the burden for you. But
simply praying will not do. We know we have rolled our burden upon God,
if after praying, the heart is easy, the heart is light. If this is not
the case, then we are still carrying the burden ourselves instead of
casting it on God, and have need to go again to Him, and in believing
prayer exercise faith with regard to the power and willingness of God
to carry the burden for us.”
George Muller
Does
the
prayer, “Give us this day our daily bread,” mean
that we
are to do nothing to secure our bread, lest we show no faith in God,
and simply wait in idleness for God to repeat the miracle of sending it
by a raven? or, does it mean that with thankful hearts to God for the
ability he has given us to work, that we go forth diligently fulfilling
our task in the use of all appropriate means to secure that which his
loving bounty has made possible for us in the fruitful seasons of the
earth, and return with devout recognition that He is the Creator,
Upholder and Giver of all, bringing our sheaves with us. When seed-time
and harvest fail and death is on the land, when corn fails in Egypt and
there is no bread, when we have obeyed him and sought to toil with our
hands and no man has given unto us, then we will expect his
interposition and will have faith that he who has fed us by use of
means, will supply us without means, and that He alone is the living
God."
Daniel Whittle
I
desire that
all the children of God may be lead to increased and more simple
confidence in God for everything which they may need under any
circumstances. I trust that my experience with answered prayer may
encourage them to pray, particularly as it regards the conversion of
their friends and relatives, their own progress in grace and knowledge,
the state of the saints who they know personally, the state of the
church of God at large, and the success of the preaching of the Gospel.
Especially I affectionately warn them against being led away by the
device of Satan, to think that such prayer and answers to prayer cannot
be enjoyed by all the children of God, for all believers are called
upon, in the simple confidence of faith, to cast all their burdens upon
Him, to trust in Him for everything, and not only to make every thing a
subject of prayer, but to expect answers to their petitions which they
have asked according to His will, and in the name of the Lord Jesus.
George Muller