Thoughts on Prayer
Dr. Bailey
"Prayer is more about the development of a relationship than about 'my' answers. It will be that unique, sacred relationship which will calm my storms and lead me to the light, more than my receiving a quick prescription."
Paul Ronka
"A 'Quiet Time' is more than just the time we spend in a quiet place each morning. It's a relationship throughout the day."
Brother Lawrence
"That in order to form a habit of conversing with God continually, and referring all we do to Him; we must at first apply to Him with some diligence: but that after a little care we should find His love inwardly excite us to it without any difficulty."
Ruth Bell Graham
"Just pray for a tough hide and a tender heart."
Parsons
"No Christian is greater than his prayer life. The church has many organizers, but few agonizers; many who pay, but few who pray; many resters, but few wrestlers; many who are enterprising, but few who are interceding. People who are not praying are playing."
Oswald Chambers
"Is the Son of God praying in me, or am I dictating to Him?...Prayer is not simply getting things from God, that is a most initial form of prayer; prayer is getting into perfect communion with God. If the Son of God is formed in us by regeneration, He will press forward in front of our common sense and change our attitude to the things about which we pray."
Alexander Maclaren
"Prayer is not to inform God or to move Him unwillingly to have mercy, as if, like some proud prince, He requires a certain amount of recognition of His greatness as the price of His favor; but to fit our hearts by conscious need and true desire and dependence to receive the gift which He is ever willing to give, but we are not always ready to receive."
Charles Spurgeon
"Prayer pulls the rope down below and the great bell rings above in the ears of God. Some scarcely stir the bell, for they pray so languidly; others give only an occasional jerk at the rope. But he who communicates with heaven is the man who grasps the rope boldly and pulls continuously with all his might."
Ever Garrison
"Some stand on tiptoe trying to reach God to talk to him — you try too hard, friend — drop to your knees and listen to him, he'll hear you better that way."
Dwight L. Moody
- "Every great movement of God can be traced to a kneeling figure."
- "Next to the wonder of seeing my Savior will be, I think, the wonder that I made so little use of the power of prayer."
Basil the Great
"What is more blessed than to imitate on earth the choir of angels, at break of day to rise to prayer, and praise the Creator with anthems and songs; then go to labor in the clear radiance of the sun, accompanied everywhere by prayer, seasoning work with praise, as if with salt?"
~Unknown
"God understands our prayers even when we can't find the words to say them."
Martin Luther
"If I fail to spend two hours in prayer each morning, the Devil gets the victory through the day...I have so much business, I can not get on without spending three hours daily in prayer."
E. M. Bounds
- "We would not have any think that the value of their prayers is to be measured by the clock, but our purpose is to impress on our minds the necessity of being much alone with God; and that if this feature has not been produced by our faith, then our faith is of a feeble and surface type."
- "Pray for 'all men.' We usually pray more for things than we do for men. Our prayers should be thrown across their pathway as they rush in their downward course to a lost eternity."
- "Paul was in the habit of praying, but he prayed not by mere force of habit."
Flavel
"The devil is aware that one hour of close fellowship, hearty converse with God in prayer, is able to pull down what he hath been contriving and building many a year."
Jose Zayas
"Action without prayer is arrogance, prayer without action is hypocrisy."
B. Graham Dienert
"Many people pray as if God were a big aspirin pill; they come only when they hurt."
Richard Alleine
"The reason why we obtain no more in prayer is because we expect no more. God usually answers us according to our own hearts."
Nelson
"Effective prayer must be a scripturally informed response of persons saved by grace to the living God who can hear and answer on the basis of Christ's payment of the penalty which sinners deserved."
F.B. Meyer
"The great tragedy of life is not unanswered prayer, but unoffered prayer."
William Carey
"Prayer — secret, fervent, believing prayer — lies at the root of all personal godliness."
Jim Elliot
"Father, make of me a crisis man. Bring those I contact to decision. Let me not be a milepost on a single road; make me a fork, that men must turn one way or another on facing Christ in me."
Ashleigh Brilliant
"If we could all hear one another's prayers, God might be relieved of some of his burdens."
Sir Thomas Buxton
"You know the value of prayer: it is precious beyond all price. Never, never neglect it."
Frederick B. Meyer
"Prayer is educative. The man who prays grows; and the muscles of the soul swell from this whipcord to iron bands."
V. L. Crawford
"Prayer is the spiritual gymnasium in which we exercise and practice godliness."
~Unknown
The secret to effective prayer is faith in Jesus Christ and absolute trust in the Word He has spoken.
Star Richés
When it's a glorious day
I pray
and
It's a glorious day
When I pray
Dick Eastman
"In no other way can the believer become as fully involved with God's work especially the work of world evangelism as in intercessory prayer....When the prayer warrior intercedes, he forgets his personal need and focuses all of his faith and prayer attention on others. To intercede is to mediate. It is to stand between a lost being and an Almighty God, praying that this person will come to know about God and His salvation."
John R. W. Stott
"Prayer is not a convenient device for imposing our will upon God, or bending his will to ours, but the prescribed way of subordinating our will to his."
Leonard Ravenhill
"Quit playing, start praying. Quit feasting, start fasting. Talk less with men, talk more with God. Listen less to men, listen to the words of God. Skip travel, start travail."
Calvin's Third Reason to Pray
"The third is that their hearts may ever be attuned to thanksgiving, since they know that every blessing comes from him."