Quotes about Prayer

Our prayers must not be a vague appeal to His mercy or an indefinite cry for blessing, but the distinct expression of definite need. It is not that His loving heart does not understand our cry or is not ready to hear, but He desires it for our own sake. Such definite prayer teaches us to know our own needs better. It demands time and thought and self-scrutiny to find out what really is our greatest need.

Do not serve God half-heartedly. Pray that the Holy Spirit will lead you to the wonder of a life wholly surrendered to God's service.

We seek God's gifts; God wants to give Himself to us first. We think of prayer as the power to draw good gifts from heaven and Jesus as the means to draw ourselves to God. We want to stand at the door and cry; Jesus wants us to enter first and realize that we are friends and children.

The relationship among the members of the church depends on united and unceasing prayer. This relationship is spiritual and can only be maintained by unceasing prayer.

In not granting an answer, the Father tells us that there is something wrong in our praying. He wants to teach us to discover it and confess it; He wants to educate us about true believing and prevailing prayer. He will only attain His objective when He brings us to see that we are to blame for the withholding of the answer - our aim, or our faith, or our life is not what it should be.

And wherever faith has accepted the Father's love, obedience accepts the Father's will. The surrender to, and the prayer for a life of heaven-like obedience, is the spirit of childlike prayer.

Though in its beginnings prayer is so simple that the feeble child can pray, yet it is at the same time the highest and holiest work to which man can rise.

It must be to the glory of God, in full surrender to His will, in full assurance of faith, in the name of Jesus, and with a perseverance that, if need be, refuses to be denied. All this must be learned. It can only be learned in the school of much prayer, for practice makes perfect.

Perseverance in prayer, a perseverance that strengthens the faith of the believer against everything that may seem opposed to the answer, is a real miracle; it is one of the impenetrable mysteries of the life of faith.

In every prayer the triune God takes a part—the Father who hears, the Son in whose name we pray, and the Spirit who prays for us and in us. How important it is that we are in right relationship to the Holy Spirit and that we understand His work!

I am at the head of a station, with a large outlying district to care for. I see the importance of much prayer, and yet my life hardly leaves room for it. Are we to submit? Or tell us how we can attain to what we desire.

Let but the deep undertone of all our prayer be the teachableness that comes from a sense of ignorance, and from faith in Him as a perfect teacher, and we may be sure we shall be taught, we shall learn to pray in power.