Prayer

Praying With Precision – Charles Spurgeon

There is a general kind of praying which fails for lack of precision. It is as if a regiment of soldiers should all fire off their guns anywhere. Possibly somebody would be killed, but the majority of the enemy would be missed

– Charles Spurgeon –

Experience Power of Prayer – Martin Luther

No one can believe how powerful prayer is and what it can effect, except those who have learned it by experience. Whenever I have prayed earnestly, I have been heard and have obtained more than I prayed for. God sometimes delays, but He always comes.

– Martin Luther –

Pray Or We Die – Leonard Ravenhill

No man is greater than his prayer life. The pastor who is not praying is playing; the people who are not praying are straying. Poverty-stricken as the Church is today in many things, she is most stricken here, in the place of prayer. In the matter of New Testament, Spirit-inspired, hell-shaking, world-breaking prayer, never has so much been left to so few. For this kind of prayer there is no substitute. We do it – or we die!

– Leonard Ravenhill –

What God Intends Prayer To Be – Rosalind Goforth

Prayer has been hedged about with too many man-made rules. I am convinced that God has intended prayer to be as simple and natural, and as constant a part of our spiritual life, as the intercourse between a child and his parent in the home. And as a large part of that intercourse between child and parent is simply asking and receiving, just so is it with us and our Heavenly Parent.

– Rosalind Goforth –

Where Wisdom May Be Found – Charles Spurgeon

There is more wisdom in a quarter of an hour’s prayer than there is in a quarter of a year’s consultation with friends. Oftentimes when we have sought counsel of the living God he has befriended us. When we have left things with him, we have always gone wisely. Oh, how he can make the most crooked thing that ever did happen suddenly turn out to be the very straightest thing that ever occurred for our welfare. I know that sometimes I have puzzled my head about some difficulty in my Master’s service — asked opinions of lots of people, like a stupid, and I have gone home with any head aching in deeper uncertainty than ever what to do. And I have never discovered how to unravel a knotty point by my own ingenuity, but I have always found that when I at last bowed the knee, and said, “Heavenly Father, it is rather thy business than mine; it is quite beyond me, and I now leave it in thy hands to guide me,” … it has gone all right. If I had maneuvered to manage it for myself it would have gone wrong enough.

– Charles Spurgeon –

The Sweeter Are Our Reliefs – John Flavel

The more prayers and searchings of heart come between our needs and supplies, our afflictions and reliefs, the sweeter are our reliefs and supplies thereby made to us. “Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, and he will save us; this is the Lord, we have waited for him, we will rejoice and be glad in his salvation” (Isaiah 25:9).

– John Flavel –
from The Mystery of Providence, 1678

Prayer is a Golden Key – Thomas Brooks

Private prayer is a golden key to unlock the mysteries of the Word to us. The knowledge of many choice and blessed truths is but the outcome of private prayer. The Word most dwells richly in their hearts who are most in pouring out their hearts before God in their closets.

– Thomas Brooks –
from The Secret Key To Heaven, 1665