Prayer

 

 

 

1. “You can do more than pray after you have prayed; but you can never do more than pray until you have prayed.” A.J. Gordon

2. “God does nothing except in response to believing prayer.” John Wesley (Famous evangelist who spent 2 hours daily in prayer)

3. “Prayer strikes the winning blow; service is simply picking up the pieces.” S.D. Gordon

4. “One should never initiate anything that he cannot saturate with prayer.”

5. “The greatest thing anyone can do for God or man is pray.” S.D. Gordon

6. “If I fail to spend two hours in prayer each morning, the devil gets the victory through the day. I have so much business I cannot get on without spending three hours daily in prayer. Martin Luther
7. “The most important thing a born again Christian can do is to pray.” Chuck Smith

8. “Prayer does not change the purpose of God. But prayer does change the action of God.” Chuck Smith

9. “Men may spurn our appeals, reject our message, oppose our arguments, despise our persons, but they are helpless against our prayers.” Sidlow Baxter

10. “God shapes the world by prayer. The more prayer there is in the world the better the world will be, the mightier the forces of against evil …” E.M. Bounds

11. “Prayer is where the action is.” John Wesley

12. “Satan does not care how many people read about prayer if only he can keep them from praying. Paul E. Billheimer

13. “0h 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 A. Bonar

14. “Don’t pray when you feel like it. Have an appointment with the Lord and keep it. A man is powerful on his knees.” Corrie ten Boom

15. “Talking to men for God is a great thing, but talking to God for men is greater still.” E.M. Bounds

16. “The men who have done the most for God in this world have been early on their knees. He who fritters away the early morning, its opportunity and freshness, in other pursuits than seeking God will make poor headway seeking Him the rest of the day. If God is not first in our thoughts and efforts in the morning, He will be in the last place the remainder of the day.” E.M. Bounds

17. “God’s cause is committed to men; God commits Himself to men. Praying men are the vice-regents of God; they do His work and carry out His plans.” E.M. Bounds

18. “The prayer power has never been tried to its full capacity. If we want to see mighty wonders of divine power and grace wrought in the place of weakness, failure and disappointment, let us answer God’s standing challenge, “Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not!'” (J. Hudson Taylor)

19. “No learning can make up for the failure to pray. No earnestness, no diligence, no study, no gifts will supply its lack.” E.M. Bounds

20. “The little estimate we put on prayer is evidence from the little time we give to it.” E.M. Bounds

21. “It is necessary to iterate and reiterate that prayer, as a mere habit, as a performance gone through by routine or in a professional way, is a dead and rotten thing.” E.M. Bounds

22. “Satan trembles when he sees the weakest Christian on his knees.” William Cowper

23. “If the church wants a better pastor, it only needs to pray for the one it has.”

24. “Seven days without prayer makes one weak.” Allen E. Vartlett

25. “Prayer is the real work, Evangelism is just the mopping up.”

26. “You may as soon find a living man that does not breath, as a living Christian that does not pray.” Matthew Henry

27. “Prayer will make a man cease from sin, or sin will entice a man to cease from prayer.” John Bunyon

28. “He who has learned to pray has learned the greatest secret of a holy and happy life.” William Law

29. “Prayer is not overcoming God’s reluctance, but laying hold of His willingness.” Martin Luther.

30. “There is not in the world a kind of life more sweet and delightful than that of a continual conversation with God.” Brother Lawrence

31. When asked how much time he spent in prayer, George Muller’s reply was, “Hours every day. But I live in the spirit of prayer. I pray as I walk and when I lie down and when I arise. And the answers are always coming.” Source Unknown.

32. “The one concern of the devil is to keep Christians from praying. He fears nothing from prayerless studies, prayerless work and prayerless religion. He laughs at our toil, mocks at our wisdom, but he trembles when we pray.” Samuel Chadwick

33. “I would rather teach one man to pray than ten men to preach.” Charles Spurgeon

34. “The man who mobilizes the Christian church to pray will make the greatest contribution to world evangelization in history.” Andrew Murray

35. “If I could hear Christ praying for me in the next room, I would not fear a million enemies. Yet distance makes no difference. He is praying for me.” (Robert Murray McCheyne)

36. “One day George Mueller began praying for five of his friends. After many months, one of them came to the Lord. Ten years later, two others were converted. It took 25 years before the fourth man was saved. Mueller persevered in prayer until his death for the fifth friend, and throughout those 52 years he never gave up hoping that he would accept Christ! His faith was rewarded, for soon after Mueller’s funeral the last one was saved.”

37. On persevering prayer: “I look at a stone cutter hammering away at a rock a hundred times without so much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the 101st blow it splits in two. I know it was not the one blow that did it, but all that had gone before.”

38. “Eighteen-year-old Hudson Taylor wandered into his father’s library and read a gospel tract. He couldn’t shake off its message. Finally, falling to his knees, he accepted Christ as his Savior. Later, his mother, who had been away, returned home. When Hudson told her the good news, she said, “I already know. Ten days ago, the very date on which you tell me you read that tract, I spent the entire afternoon in prayer for you until the Lord assured me that my wayward son had been brought into the fold.” Our Daily Bread, July 19, 1989. [Hudson Taylor (1832-1905) was a famous missionary in China. He was founder of the China Inland Mission which, at his death, included 205 mission stations with over 800 missionaries, and 125,000 Chinese Christians. He spent 51 years in China].

39. Spurgeon’s “boilerroom.” Five young college students were spending a Sunday in London, so they went to hear the famed C.H. Spurgeon preach. While waiting for the doors to open, the students were greeted by a man who asked, “Gentlemen, let me show you around. Would you like to see the heating plant of this church?” They were not particularly interested, for it was a hot day in July. But they didn’t want to offend the stranger, so they consented. The young men were taken down a stairway, a door was quietly opened, and their guide whispered, “This is our heating plant.” Surprised, the students saw 700 people bowed in prayer, seeking a blessing on the service that was soon to begin in the auditorium above. Softly closing the door, the gentleman then introduced himself. It was none other than Charles Spurgeon. Our Daily Bread, April 24.

40. “Prayer does not influence God. Prayer surely does influence God. It does not influence His purpose. It does influence His action.” S.D. Gordon

41. Prayer “is the root, the fountain, the mother of a thousand blessings.” Chrysostom

42. “Prayer is the greatest of all forces, because it honors God and brings him into active aid.” E.M. Bounds

43. Prayer should not be regarded “as a duty which must be performed, but rather as a privilege to be enjoyed, a rare delight that is always revealing some new beauty.” E.M. Bounds

44. “I never prayed sincerely and earnestly for anything but it came at some time; no matter at how distant a day, somehow, in some shape, probably the least I would have devised, it came.” Adoniram Judson

45. “Our prayer must not be self-centered. It must arise not only because we feel our own need as a burden we must lay upon God, but also because we are so bound up in love for our fellow men that we feel their need as acutely as our own. To make intercession for men is the most powerful and practical way in which we can express our love for them.” John Calvin

46. “We have to pray with our eyes on God, not on the difficulties.” Oswald Chambers

47. “Faith in a prayer-hearing God will make a prayer-loving Christian.” Andrew Murray

48. “The battle of prayer is against two things in the earthlies: wandering thoughts, and lack of intimacy with God’s character as revealed in His word. Neither can be cured at once, but they can be cured by discipline.” Oswald Chambers

49. “Prayer breaks all bars, dissolves all chains, opens all prisons, and widens all straits by which God’s saints have been held.” E. M. Bounds

50. “A life growing in its purity and devotion will be a more prayerful life.” E. M. Bounds

51. “Four things let us ever keep in mind: God hears prayer, God heeds prayer, God answers prayer, and God delivers by prayer.” E. M. Bounds

52. “Prayer is the acid test of devotion.” Samuel Chadwick

53. “As is the business of tailors to make clothes and cobblers to make shoes, so it is the business of Christians to pray.” Martin Luther

54. “Prayer is my chief work, and it is by means of it that I carry on the rest.” Thomas Hooker, Puritan

55. “The true church lives and moves and has its being in prayer.” Leonard Ravenhill

56. “We can do nothing without prayer. All things can be done by importunate prayer. That is the teaching of Jesus Christ”. E. M. Bounds

57. “Prayer wonderfully clears the vision; steadies the nerves; defines duty; stiffens the purpose; sweetens and strengthens the spirit.” S.D. Gordon

58. “The secret of all failure is our failure in secret prayer.” The Kneeling Christian

59. “…True prayer is measured by weight, not by length. A single groan before God may have more fullness of prayer in it than a fine oration of great length.” C. H. Spurgeon

60. “If you want that splendid power in prayer, you must remain in loving, living, lasting, conscious, practical, abiding union with the Lord Jesus Christ.” C. H. Spurgeon

61. “Little praying is a kind of make believe, a salve for the conscience, a farce and a delusion.” E. M. Bounds (Emphasis added)

62. “The word of God is the food by which prayer is nourished and made strong.” E. M. Bounds

63. “If the spiritual life be healthy, under the full power of the Holy Spirit, praying without ceasing will be natural.” Andrew Murray

64. “We do not pray at all until we are at our wits’ end.” Oswald Chambers

65. “The great people of the earth today are the people who pray! I do not mean those who talk about prayer; nor those who say they believe in prayer; nor those who explain prayer; but I mean those who actually take the time to pray. They have not time. It must be taken from something else. That something else is important, very important and pressing, but still, less important and pressing than prayer. There are people who put prayer first, and group the other items in life’s schedule around and after prayer. These are the people today who are doing the most for God in winning souls, in solving problems, in awakening churches, in supplying both men and money for mission posts, in keeping fresh and strong their lives far off in sacrificial service on the foreign field, where the thickest fighting is going on, and in keeping the old earth sweet a little while longer.” S.D. Gordon (Emphasis added)

66. “Up in a little town in Maine,things were pretty dead some years ago. The churches were not accomplishing anything. There were a few Godly men in the churches, and they said: ‘Here we are, only uneducated laymen; but something must be done in this town. Let us form a praying band. We will all center our prayers on one man. Who shall it be?’ They picked out one of the hardest men in town, a hopeless drunkard, and centered all their prayers upon him. In a week, he was converted. They centered their prayers upon the next hardest man in town, and soon he was converted. Then they took up another and another, until within a year, two or three hundred were brought to God, and the fire spread out into all the surrounding country. Definite prayer for those in the prison house of sin is the need of the hour.” Dr. R.A. Torrey

67. “Therefore, whether the desire for prayer is on you or not, get to your closet at the set time; shut yourself in with God; wait upon Him; seek His face; realize Him; pray.” R. F. Horton

68. “Time spent alone with God is not wasted. It changes us; it changes our surroundings; and every Christian who would live the life that counts, and who would have power for service must take time to pray.” M.E. Andross

69. Make time to pray. “The great freight and passenger trains are never too busy to stop for fuel. No matter how congested the yards may be, no matter how crowded the schedules are, no matter how many things demand the attention of the trainmen, those trains always stop for fuel.” M.E. Andross

70. “There is no other activity in life so important as that of prayer. Every other activity depends upon prayer for its best efficiency.” M.E. Andross

71. “…the man on his knees has a leverage underneath the mountain which can cast it into the sea, if necessary, and can force all earth and heaven to recognize the power there is in ‘His name.’” M.E. Andross

72. When prayer has become secondary, or incidental, it has lost its power. Those who are conspicuously men of prayer are those who use prayer as they use food, or air, or light, or money.” M.E. Andross

73. “If the Christian does not allow prayer to drive sin out of his life, sin will drive prayer out of his life. Like light and darkness, the two cannot dwell together.” M.E. Andross

74. “We must begin to believe that God, in the mystery of prayer, has entrusted us with a force that can move the Heavenly world, and can bring its power down to earth.” Andrew Murray

75. “…[the] power of prayer can never be overrated. They who cannot serve God by preaching need not regret. If a man can but pray he can do anything. He who knows how to overcome with God in prayer has Heaven and earth at his disposal.” Charles H. Spurgeon

76. “Prayer is a spiritual law which cooperates with the mind of God. It has more in it than merely petition. It clothes itself in reality and power, with the force of God Himself. It is an attitude of spirit and mind. Language is secondary in true prayer.” Gossner.

77. “What the church needs today is not more machinery or better, not new organizations or more novel methods, but men whom the Holy Ghost can use— men of prayer, men mighty in prayer” E.M. Bounds

78. “Prayer does not fit us for the greater work; prayer is the greater work.” Oswald Chambers.

79. “It is not enough to begin to pray, nor to pray aright; nor is it enough to continue for a time to pray; but we must patiently, believingly, continue in prayer until we obtain an answer; George Müller

80. “Those persons who know the deep peace of God, the unfathomable peace that passeth all understanding, are always men and women of much prayer.” R. A. Torrey
81. “Prayer can never be in excess.” C. H. Spurgeon

82. “The trouble with nearly everybody who prays is that he says ‘Amen’ and runs away before God has a chance to reply. Listening to God is far more important than giving Him our ideas.” Frank Laubach

83. “Time spent in prayer will yield more than that given to work. Prayer alone gives work its worth and its success. Prayer opens the way for God Himself to do His work in us and through us. Let our chief work as God’s messengers be intercession; in it we secure the presence and power of God to go with us.” Andrew Murray

84.“Yes, worship of the loving God is man’s whole reason for existence.” A.W. Tozer

85. “The Bible is not an end in itself, but a means to bring men to an intimate and satisfying knowledge of God, that they may enter into Him, that they may delight in His Presence, may taste and know the inner sweetness of the very God Himself in the core and center of their hearts.” A.W. Tozer

86. “We are too busy to pray, and so we are too busy to have power. We have a great deal of activity, but we accomplish little; many services but few conversions; much machinery but few results.” R. A. Torrey

87. “Prayer is not learned in a classroom but in the closet.” E. M. Bounds

88. “Prayer is not monologue, but dialogue. God’s voice in response to mine is its most essential part.” Andrew Murray

89. “Prayer is weakness leaning on omnipotence.” W. S. Bowd

90. “Our prayers lay the track down which God’s power can come. Like a mighty locomotive, his power is irresistible, but it cannot reach us without rails.” Watchman Nee

91. “Whole days and weeks have I spent prostrate on the ground in silent or vocal prayer.” George Whitefield (Great Evangelist during American Revolution era, during the First Great Awakening in America)

92. “I ought to pray before seeing any one…Christ arose before day and went into a solitary place. David says: ‘Early will I seek thee’…I feel it is far better to begin with God-to see His face first, to get my soul near Him before it is near another.” – Robert Murray M’Cheyne

93. “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. Add to this list from the records of the church your personal observation and experience, and always there is the cost of passion unto 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

94. “The main lesson about prayer is just this: Do it! Do it! Do it! You want to be taught to pray. My answer is pray and never faint, and then you shall never fail…” John Laidlaw

95. “A man who is intimate with God will never be intimidated by men.” Leonard Ravenhill

96. “Prayer is the secret of power.” Evan Roberts

97. “Since the days of Pentecost, has the whole church ever put aside every other work and waited upon Him for ten days, that the Spirit’s power might be manifested? We give too much attention to method and machinery and resources, and too little to the source of power.” Hudson Taylor

98. “Where there is no vision of eternity, there is no prayer for the perishing.” David Smithers

99. “Prayer is buried, and lost and Heaven weeps. If all prayed the wicked would flee from our midst or to the refuge.” Evan Roberts

100. “Ministers who do not spend two hours a day in prayer are not worth a dime a dozen – degrees or no degrees.” Leonard Ravenhill

101. “Prayer is reaching out after the unseen; fasting is letting go of all that is seen and temporal. Fasting helps express, deepen, confirm the resolution that we are ready to sacrifice anything, even ourselves to attain what we seek for the kingdom of God.” Andrew Murray

102. “All great soul-winners have been men of much and mighty prayer, and all great revivals have been preceded and carried out by persevering, prevailing knee-work in the closet.” Samuel Logan Brengle

103. “Out of a very intimate acquaintance with D. L. Moody, I wish to testify that he was a far greater prayer than he was preacher. Time and time again, he was confronted by obstacles that seemed insurmountable, but he always knew the way to overcome all difficulties. He knew the way to bring to pass anything that needed to be brought to pass. He knew and believed in the deepest depths of his soul that nothing was too hard for the Lord, and that prayer could do anything that God could do.” R. A. Torrey (Emphasis added)

104. “Prayer – secret, fervent, believing prayer – lies at the root of all personal godliness.” William Carey

105. The Word of God represents all the possibilities of God as at the disposal of true prayer.” A. T. Pierson

106. “The essence of prayer does not consist in asking God for something but in opening our hearts to God, in speaking with Him, and living with Him in perpetual communion. Prayer is continual abandonment to God. Prayer does not mean asking God for all kinds of things we want; it is rather the desire for God Himself, the only Giver of Life, Prayer is not asking, but union with God. Prayer is not a painful effort to gain from God help in the varying needs of our lives. Prayer is the desire to possess God Himself, the Source of all life. The true spirit of prayer does not consist in asking for blessings, but in receiving Him who is the giver of all blessings, and in living a life of fellowship with Him.” Sadhu Sundar Singh

107. “Closet communion needs time for the revelation of God’s presence. It is vain to say, ‘I have too much work to do to find time.’ You must find time or forfeit blessing. God knows how to save for you the time you sacredly keep for communion with Him.” A. T. Pierson (Emphasis added).

108. “Depend upon it, if you are bent on prayer, the devil will not leave you alone. He will molest you, tantalize you, block you, and will surely find some hindrances, big or little or both. And we sometimes fail because we are ignorant of his devices…I do not think he minds our praying about things if we leave it at that. What he minds, and opposes steadily, is the prayer that prays on until it is prayed through, assured of the answer.” Mary Warburton Booth

109. “I have seen many men work without praying, though I have never seen any good come out of it; but I have never seen a man pray without working.” James Hudson Taylor

110. “It is in the field of prayer that life’s critical battles are lost or won. We must conquer all our circumstances there. We must first of all bring them there. We must survey them there. We must master them there. In prayer we bring our spiritual enemies into the Presence of God and we fight them there. Have you tried that? Or have you been satisfied to meet and fight your foes in the open spaces of the world?” J. H. Jowett

111. He who runs from God in the morning will scarcely find Him the rest of the day. John Bunyan

112. “Prayer is the first thing, the second thing, the third thing necessary to a minister. Pray, then my dear brother; pray, pray, pray.” Edward Payson
113. “Each time, before you intercede, be quiet first, and worship God in His glory. Think of what He can do, and how He delights to hear the prayers of His redeemed people. Think of your place and privilege in Christ, and expect great things!” Andrew Murray

114. “Beware in your prayers, above everything else, of limiting God, not only by unbelief, but by fancying that you know what He can do. Expect unexpected things ‘above all that we ask or think.'” Andrew Murray

115. “If we would pray aright, the first thing we should do is to see to it that we really get an audience with God, that we really get into His very presence. Before a word of petition is offered, we should have the definite consciousness that we are talking to God, and should believe that He is listening and is going to grant the thing that we ask of Him.” R.A. Torrey

116. “Ten minutes spent in the presence of Christ every day, aye, two minutes, will make the whole day different.” Henry Drummond

117. “Many Christians backslide…They are unable to stand against the temptations of the world, or of their old nature. They strive to do their best to fight against sin, and to serve God, but they have no strength. They have never really grasped the secret: The Lord Jesus will every day from heaven continue His work in me. But on one condition—the soul must give Him time each day to impart His love and his grace. Time alone with the Lord Jesus each day is the indispensable condition of growth and power.” Andrew Murray (Emphasis added).
118. “Shut the world out, withdraw from all worldly thoughts and occupations, and shut yourself in alone with God, to pray to Him in secret. Let this be your chief object in prayer, to realize the presence of your heavenly Father.” Andrew Murray

119. “There has never been a spiritual awakening in any country or locality that did not begin in united prayer.” A.T. Pierson

120. “Intercession is truly universal work for the Christian. No place is closed to intercessory prayer. No continent – no nation – no organization – no city – no office. There is no power on earth that can keep intercession out.” Richard Halverson