It is one of the ironies of the ministry that the very man who works in God’s name is often hardest put to find time for God. The parents of Jesus lost Him at church, and they were not the last ones to lose Him there.
– Vance Havner –
Prayer
Have You Days of Fasting and Prayer? – John Wesley
Have you any days of fasting and prayer? Storm the throne of grace and persevere therein, and mercy will come down.
– John Wesley –
Desperate Times Without Desperate Prayer – Chuck Smith
Today, we are living in desperate times. Yet, the Church is not desperate before God in prayer.
– Chuck Smith –
Paupers in Spirit – Oswald Chambers
We will never receive if we ask with an end in view; if we ask, not out of our poverty but out of our lust. A pauper does not ask from any other reason than the abject panging condition of his poverty, he is not ashamed to beg. Blessed are the paupers in spirit.
– Oswald Chambers –
God is our True Friend – François Fénelon
God is our true Friend, who always gives us the counsel and comfort we need. Our danger lies in resisting Him; so it is essential that we acquire the habit of hearkening to His voice, or keeping silence within, and listening so as to lose nothing of what He says to us. We know well enough how to keep outward silence, and to hush our spoken words, but we know little of interior silence. It consists in hushing our idle, restless, wandering imagination, in quieting the promptings of our worldly minds, and in suppressing the crowd of unprofitable thoughts which excite and disturb the soul.
– François Fénelon –
(1651-1715)
Why so little prayer? – William Reid
Why is there so little anxiety to get time to pray? Why is there so little forethought in the laying out of time and employments, so as to secure a large portion of each day for prayer? Why is there so much speaking yet so little prayer? Why is there so much running to and fro, yet so little prayer? Why so much bustle and business, yet so little prayer? Why so many meetings with our fellow men, yet so few meetings with God?
– William Reid –
Prayer is the Most Necessary Thing – Edward Payson
Prayer is the first thing, the second thing, and the third thing necessary for a minister, especially if he have revivals. Pray, then, my dear brother, pray, pray, pray.
– Edward Payson –
Weak in Prayer Equals Weak in Preaching
We are weak in the pulpit because weak in the closet.
– John Angel James –
The Prayers of Martin Luther
Do we know a prayerfulness like that of Luther, who once said, “I have so much business to do today that I shall not be able to get through it with less than three hours [of] prayer.”
– Henry Fish –