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If You Will Ask
A thing is worth what it costs. Prayer is not what it costs us, but what it cost God to enable us to pray.
God answers prayer on the ground of redemption and on no other ground. Let us never forget that our prayers are heard, not because we are in earnest, not because we suffer, but because Jesus suffered… because He went through Calvary, we have "boldness to enter into the holiest."
God does not exist to answer our prayers, but by our prayers we come to discern the mind of God...
The secret of the sacred struggle for prayer lies in the fact that we must stand in the armor of God, practicing what God would have us do. Then we can hold the position of prayer against all the attacks of the devil.
Excerpted from If You Will Ask, by Oswald Chambers
I was never deeply interested in any object, never prayed sincerely and earnestly for it, but that it came at some time, no matter how distant the day. Somehow, in some shape, probably the last I would have devised, it came.
~Adoniram Judson
How much we may be to blame for the faults of others not being cured! We point to their faults and failings, but we don’t pray for them.
~Andrew Bonar
The blessing we pray for may not come at once, but it is on it’s way. Sometimes the Lord keeps us waiting long, because He likes to keep us in His presence.
~Andrew Bonar
Perhaps the deadness of thy heart in prayer ariseth from not having a deep sense of thy wants, and the mercies thou art in need of…The hungry man needs no help to teach him how to beg.
~William Gurnall
If your prayers were always answered, you’d have a reason to doubt the wisdom of God.
If Christians spent as much time praying as grumbling, they would soon have nothing to grumble about.
When I go aside in order to pray, I find my heart unwilling to approach God; and when I tarry in prayer my heart is unwilling to abide in Him. Therefore, I am compelled first to pray to God to move my heart into Himself, and when I am in Him, I pray that my heart remain in Him.
~John Bunyan
The first rule of right prayer is to have our heart and mind framed as becomes those who are entering into converse with God.
~John Calvin
The Secret of Intercession
And may our hearts indeed feel that there is no honor or blessedness on earth at all equal to the unspeakable privilege of waiting upon God and bringing down from heaven and of opening the way on earth for the blessing He delights to give!
“…The harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few; pray ye therefore the Lord of havest, that he will send forth laborers into his harvest” (Matthew 9:37-38). Christ meant to teach us that however large the field may be and however few the laborers, prayer is the best, the sure, the only means for supplying the need.
There is no blessedness greater than that of abiding communion with God.
There is nothing that can bring us nearer to God, and lead us deeper into His love, than the work of intercession…There is nothing that can so help us to prove the power and the faithfulness of God to His Word as when we reach out in intercession to the multitudes either in the church of Christ or in the darkness of heathenism…God will be glorified, our souls will reach their highest destiny, and God’s kingdom will come.
The thought that God is indeed longing to find His home and His rest in the hearts of men, if He be only “inquired of” (Ez. 36:37), will rouse our whole being to strive for Zion’s sake not to hold our peace. All the thoughts of feebleness and unworthiness will be swallowed up in the wonderful assurance that He has said of human hearts: "This is my rest for ever; here will I dwell, for I have desired it" (Psalm 132:14).
"Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not” (Jeremiah 33:3). If He has thus blessed our feeble efforts and prayers, what will He not do if we yield ourselves wholly to a life of intercession?
Excerpted from The Secret of Intercession by Andrew Murray
Thou art coming to a King;
Large petitions with thee bring.
For His grace and power are such
None can ever ask too much! ~John Newton
Be not afraid to pray… to pray is right.
Pray if thou canst with hope; but ever pray
Though hope be weak, or sick with long delay.
Whatever is good to wish, ask that of heaven;
But if for any wish thou darest not pray,
Then pray to God to cast that wish away. ~Hartley Coleridge
The Necessity of Prayer
Faith does the impossible because it brings God to undertake for us, and nothing is impossible with God.
No man can pray -- really pray -- who does not obey.
We simply cannot talk to God, strongly and intimately and confidently unless we are living for him faithfully and truly.
Can we keep all of God’s commandments?… By every token, man can, through prayer, obtain ability to do this very thing.
Some statements of the Word of God about prayer: “Pray without ceasing; continue in prayer; continuing instant in prayer; in everything by prayer; let your request be made known unto God; pray always; pray and not faint; men should pray everywhere; praying always; with all prayer and supplication.”
One reads the Bible to discover God’s will; he prays in order that he may receive power to do that will.
He who would have a heart for the reading of the Bible must not--dare not--forget to pray.
Excerpted from The Necessity of Prayer by E.M. Bounds
'Tis not enough to bend the knee,
And words of prayer to say;
The heart must with the lips agree,
Or else we do not pray.
I love to think on mercies past,
And future good implore;
And all my cares and sorrows cast
On him whom I adore.
Trials must and will befall;
But with humble faith to see
Love inscribed upon them all --
This is happiness to me.
Trials make the promise sweet
Trials give new life to prayer;
Bring me to my savior’s feet
Lay me low and keep me there.
Poems from The Essentials of Prayer by E.M. Bounds
Special thanks to Kristen K. for submitting
all the excellent items on this page!
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