Inspirational Quotes on Prayer

“Satan wants us to focus on the problem, not the Provider. He constantly points to what seems to be rather than to what God has promised to do. If we stop spending time with the Lord in prayer, the concerns of the physical world snatch our attention and dominate us, while the spiritual senses deaden and the promises fade. I am absolutely convinced that the number one reason that Christians today don't pray more is because we do not grasp the connection between prayer and the promises of God. We are trying as individuals and churches to pray 'because we're supposed to' without a living faith in the promises of God concerning prayer. No faith life of any significance can be maintained by this 'ought-to' approach. There must be faith in God at the bottom. ... When real faith in God arises, a certainty comes that when we call, he will answer...that when we ask, we will receive...that when we knock, the door will be opened...”

“When we seek God for answers, we must persevere in prayer, letting it build up day after day until the force of it becomes a mighty tide pushing over all obstacles.”

“Day after day goes by, and God keeps looking, looking....Doesn't anyone want to call out for his blessing? Upon whom can he pour his grace? Isn't anyone interested?”

“And indeed we must seek the true rule of prayer in the word of God, that we may not rashly break through to Him, but may approach him in the manner in which he has revealed himself to us. This appears more clearly from the adjoining context, where Jacob, recalling the command and promise of God to memory, is supported as by two pillars. Certainly the legitimate method of praying is, that the faithful should answer to God who calls them; and thus there is such a mutual agreement between his word and their vows, that no sweeter and more harmonious symphony can be imagined. “O Lord,” he says, “I return at thy command: thou also didst promise protection to me returning; it is therefore right that thou shouldest become the guide of my journey.” This is a holy boldness, when, having discharged our duty according to God’s calling, we familiarly ask of him whatsoever he has promised; since he, by binding himself gratuitously to us, becomes in a sense voluntarily our debtor. But whoever, relying on no command or promise of God, offers his prayers, does nothing but cast vain and empty words into the air.”

“For though God has promised to do whatsoever his people may ask, yet he does not allow them an unbridled liberty to ask whatever may come to their minds; but he has at the same time prescribed to them a law according to which they are to pray. And doubtless nothing is better for us than this restriction; for if it was allowed to every one of us to ask what he pleased, and if God were to indulge us in our wishes, it would be to provide very badly for us. For what may be expedient we know not; nay, we boil over with corrupt and hurtful desires. But God supplies a twofold remedy, lest we should pray otherwise than according to what his own will has prescribed; for he teaches us by his word what he would have us to ask, and he has also set over us his Spirit as our guide and ruler, to restrain our feelings, so as not to suffer them to wander beyond due bounds. For what or how to pray, we know not, says Paul, but the Spirit helpeth our infirmity, and excites in us unutterable groans. (Romans 8:26.) We ought also to ask the mouth of the Lord to direct and guide our prayers; for God in his promises has fixed for us, as it has been said, the right way of praying.”

“We may be sure of this, and we must pray in the assurance of it, in a full assurance of his faith, that wherever God finds a praying heart, he will be found a prayer-hearing God; though the voice of prayer be a low voice, a weak voice, yet if it come from an upright heart, it is a voice that God will hear, that he will hear with pleasure, it is his delight, and hay he will return a gracious answer to; he hath heard thy prayers, he hath seen thy tears. When therefore we stand praying, this ground we must stand upon, this principle we must stand to, nothing doubting, nothing wavering, that whatever we ask of God as a father, in the name of Jesus Christ the Mediator, according to the will of God revealed in the Scripture, it shall be granted us either in kind or kindness; so the promise is, John 16:23, and the truth of it is sealed to by the concurring experience of the saints in all ages, ever since men began to call upon the name of the Lord, that Jacob's God never yet said to Jacob's seed, seek he me in vain, and he will not begin now. When we come to God by prayer, if we come aright we may be confident of this, that notwithstanding the distance between heaven and earth, and our great unworthiness to have any notice taken of us, or any favour showed us; yet God doth hear our voice, and will not turn away our prayers or his mercy.”

“Prayer is a salve for every sore, even the sorest, a remedy for every malady, even the most grievous.”

“The purpose of prayer is that we get ahold of God, not of the answer.”

“Prayer is not an exercise, it is the life of the saint. Beware of anything that stops the offering up of prayer.”

“When you pretend you don’t feel hurt or angry or devastated, you’re not fooling God. Be honest! Don’t misunderstand; I am not encouraging you to be angry at God or to blame him. He deserves no blame. Rather, I am encouraging you to honestly confess to God your feelings of hurt, resentment, and anger. Often we look at suffering from our perspective and forget that God sees from another vantage point.”

“[O]ur applications are quicker about our sufferings, than our sins(77)[.]”

“If every work of the day had thus its appointed time, we should be better skilled, both in redeeming time and performing duty (556).”

“Meditation puts reason in its authority and preeminence. It helpeth to deliver it form its captivity to the sense, and setteth it again upon the throne of the soul. When reason is silent, it is usually subject; for when it is asleep the senses domineer. . . . Reason is at the strongest when it is most in action. Now, meditation produceth reason into act (573).”

“That with him the set times of prayer were not different from other times: that he retired to pray, according to the directions of his Superior, but that he did not want such retirement. nor ask for it, because his greatest business did not divert him from GOD.”

“Christian prayer and Christian piety, we believe, are based only upon the faithfulness of the Christian message and to Him who is the substance of it.”

“Prayer doesn’t begin with our needs, but with his bounty.”

“It shouldn’t surprise us…to find that prayer is not finally about getting things from God, but getting God.”

“He is holy, and so we worship (adoration). He is merciful, and so we repent (confession). He is gracious, and so we express appreciation (thanksgiving). He is loving and caring, and so we petition him for ourselves, our family, our friends, and our world (supplication).”

“…Prayer to God is not only the place for divulging our heart, but also developing our desires.”

“The great purpose of prayer is not getting things from God but getting God.”