… and most important of all, we must earnestly ask God in prayer to open our blind eyes to the meaning of the Scriptures; “Open my eyes, that I may see wondrous things from Your law” (Psalm 119:18); “I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined in the fire… and anoint your eyes with eye-salve, that you may see” (Rev. 3:18).
– William Bridge –
Christians often have little faith in prayer as a power in real life. They do not embrace cordially, in feeling as well as in theory, the truth which underlies the entire scriptural conception and illustration of prayer, that it is literally, actually, positively, effectually, a means of power.
– Austen Phelps –
From The Still Hour: Communion with God in Prayer, 1859
If we are struggling in prayer it is because the wiles of the enemy are getting the upper hand, and we must look for the cause in our lack of discipline. There are some things we have not been strenuously practicing. We used to pray in the morning, do we now? We used to commune with God over the Bible, do we now? We used to be in contact with God wherever we went, are we now? Put on the whole armor of God and continuously practice, then the wiles of the devil cannot get you unaware.
– Oswald Chambers –
from If You Will Ask, 30
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 intoxicated with sorrow, David heartbroken with remorse and grief, Jesus in sweat of blood. Such prayer prevails. It turns ordinary mortals into men of power. It brings power. It brings fire. It brings rain. It brings life. It brings God.
– Samuel Chadwick –
I want to devote my life to the prayer that can bring down God’s blessing.
– Andrew Murray –
O then, for what should my soul more pray, than for a clearer and stronger faith? ‘I believe; Lord, help my unbelief!’ I have many thousand times groaned to thee under this burden of remaining darkness and unbelief; I have many thousand times thought of the evidences of Christianity, and of the necessity of a lively, powerful, active faith. I have cried to thee night and day, ‘Lord, increase my faith!’
– Richard Baxter –
from Dying Thoughts, 34
Be frequent in closet prayer, and not now and then only. He will never have a yearning for closet prayer who is not frequent in closet prayer.
– Thomas Brooks –
from The Secret Key To Heaven, 183
O brother, pray; in spite of Satan, pray; spend hours in prayer; rather neglect friends than not pray; rather fast, and lose breakfast, dinner, tea, and supper – and sleep too – than not pray. And we must not talk about prayer, we must pray in right earnest. The Lord is near. He comes softly while the virgins slumber.
– Andrew Bonar –
is the very highest energy of which the human mind is capable; praying, that is, with the total concentration of the faculties. The great mass of worldly men and of learned men are absolutely incapable of prayer
– Samuel Taylor Coleridge –