Monday, January 23, 2012

More Quotes on Prayer




"A sinning man stops praying, a praying man stops sinning." Leonard Ravenhill

"None can believe how powerful prayer is, and what it is able to effect, but those who have learned it by experience. It is a great matter when in extreme need to take hold on prayer. I know, whenever I have prayed earnestly, that I have been amply heard, and have obtained more than I prayed for. God indeed sometimes delayed, but at last He came." Martin Luther

"True prayer is a lonely business." Samuel Chadwick

"When I am praying the most eloquently, I am getting the least accomplished in my prayer life. But when I stop getting eloquent and give God less theology and shut up and just gaze upward and wait for God to speak to my heart He speaks with such power that I have to grab a pencil and a notebook and take notes on what God is saying to my heart."  A. W. Tozer

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

"If your faith does not make you pray, have nothing to do with it: get rid of it, and God help thee to begin again." ~ C. H. Spurgeon

"I live in the spirit of prayer; I pray as I walk, when I lie down and when I rise, and the answers are always coming." ~ George Mueller 

"Notice, we never pray for folks we gossip about, and we never gossip about the folk for whom we pray! For prayer is a great deterrent." ~ Leonard Ravenhill

"See that you do not use the trick of prayer to cover up what you know you ought to do." ~ Oswald Chambers

"You can do more than pray after you've prayed, but you cannot do more than pray until you have prayed." ~ John Bunyan

"The more helpless you are, the better you are fitted to pray, and the more answers to prayer you will experience." ~ O. Hallesby

"Nothing tends more to cement the hearts of Christians than praying together. Never do they love one another so well as when they witness the outpouring of each other's hearts in prayer." ~ Charles Finney

"And there you have the reason why many people pray for the power of the Holy Ghost, and they get something, but oh, so little! because they prayed for power for work, and power for blessing, but they have not prayed for power for full deliverance from self." ~ Andrew Murray

”Worship and intercession must go together, the one is impossible without the other. Intercession means that we rouse ourselves up to get the mind of Christ about the one for whom we pray.” ~ Oswald Chambers

”History is silent about revivals that did not begin with prayer.” ~ Edwin Orr

”There is nothing that makes us love a man so much as praying for him.” ~ William Law

”The Church is looking for better methods; God is looking for better men. The Holy Ghost does not flow through methods, but through men. He does not come on machinery, but on men. He does not anoint plans, but men…Men of prayer." ~ E. M. Bounds

”Pray, and let God worry.” ~ Martin Luther

”Is prayer your steering wheel or your spare tire?” ~ Corrie Ten Boom

”I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had absolutely no other place to go.” ~ Abraham Lincoln

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

”Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men. Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers, pray for powers equal to your task.” ~ Phillips Brooks

”Rich is the person who has a praying friend.” ~ Janice Hughes

"I would rather train twenty men to pray, than a thousand to preach; A minister's highest mission ought to be to teach his people to pray." ~ H. MacGregor

“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

"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

"Prayer is the real work, Evangelism is just the mopping up."

“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

"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

"Prayer is not learned in a classroom but in the closet." ~ E. M. Bounds

"Talking to men for God is a great thing, but talking to God for men is greater still." ~ E. M. Bounds

"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

“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

"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

“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

“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

"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

”Worshipping God is the great essential of fitness.  If you have not been worshipping…when you get to work you will not only be useless yourself, but a tremendous hindrance to those who are associated with you.” ~ Oswald Chambers

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

I Will Still Follow...

It is Old Year's Eve. One of my favorite time of the year. A new year ahead. Time for new beginnings. I sit in my chair waiting. Excitement builds up as I am waiting for my favorite Romanian Adventist tradition: sharing promises for the following year. I send up a prayer, as I always do: "Lord, talk to me and give me the message that I need for the following year." The deacons are going around. I reach out and pick a bookmark.

I eagerly open my Bible to Matthew 19,29 and I start reading: "And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for My name’s sake..." I stop right there. My excitement is gone. Frustration and rebellion are taking its place. "Lord, what do you mean? I left all my family and friends behind for five years. Even now I am working a lot alone. Don't You think that I had enough of it? Don't You think it is time you give me someone to work with? You asked me several times to give up my plans to meet my ARME family and I did it. You asked me again to give up my plans to go to ARME UK and I did it. Don't You think that it will be better for me to have a support group? You said that two are better than one. And You sent the disciples two by two. You are asking me again to leave everything behind. Why? You know very well that I don't like working alone. "


I went on reasoning with God and telling Him all my frustration. He just listened. When I was done, He just asked me:


"Have I ever failed you?"

"No. You have not."

He did not have to say anything else. It was enough to remember the pace and happiness that flooded my soul when I chose to obey. And it was enough to remember His promises: "And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose." (Romans 8:28) "For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope." (Jeremiah 29:11)


I am in His hands and He will never harm me. He will never allow anything that is not for my best. It is all I needed to remember. Peace flooded my soul again.


Than I went on reading the rest of the promise: "...shall receive a hundredfold, and inherit eternal life." (Matthew 19:29) How have I missed that?


I know. I have failed again. I have proved again that I don't trust Him right away. But He lifted me up as He did countless times. He put again my feet on solid rock.


Thou none go with me, I will still follow...