This weeks "thought" consists of 20 different quotes regarding prayer. I set them before you because next to reading your Bible, there is surely nothing that could do you more spiritual good than prayer. They are not set before you to see which you consider better, but to encourage you to pray! Those who first discipled me encouraged me to set aside a focused time to pray at the start of the day and again at the close of the day, with continual spontaneous prayer being offered throughout the day. And in many ways I found that easy, being converted in the days before smart phones and computers were the rage, and social media filled all of our "empty time" with constant updates, likes, pictures, posts and sometimes needless time-wasting distractions.
Some of that is good and helpful, but much is
very trivial and infringes on time that could be spent in much more meaningful,
transforming and beneficial activities. In fact, for many, the vital experience
with God in prayer (be it morning, evening or in between) has taken a back seat
to social media sites. Many of us now wake in the morning, or end the day, by
running to our devices -- be it the smart phone or the computer. Thus, if I could
do anything (even in the life of one person) to change that, and encourage you
to spend that time in invaluable fellowship with God in prayer, it would be
worth all the time of gathering these quotes from well-known pray-ers.
If there is any habit of the heart that
believers need to rekindle, it's prayer. Try it for a day. Choose
fellowship in prayer with your greatest Friend, over scrolling through endless
the posts of other friends. For as F. B. Meyers once rightly stated: “The greatest tragedy
of life is not unanswered prayer, but unoffered prayer.” May some of these insights help sway you to offer more time with God in
prayer. Enjoy.
20 Thoughts on Prayer
"Prayer
does not change God, but it changes him who prays." Soren Kierkegaard
"Prayer
makes a man godly, and puts within him the mind of Christ, the mind of
humility, of self-surrender, of service, of compassion, and of prayer. If
we really pray, we will become more like God, or else we will quit
praying." E.M. Bounds
"Is
prayer your steering wheel or your spare tire?" Corrie
ten Boom
"To
be a Christian without prayer is no more possible than to be alive without
breathing." Martin Luther
“Prayer
does not fit us for the greater work, prayer is the greater work.” Oswald Chambers
"Rather
than set aside daily time for prayer, I pray constantly and spontaneously about
everything I encounter on a daily basis. When someone shares something with me,
I'll often simply say, 'Let's pray about this right now.'" Thomas
Kinkade
"I
have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I
had nowhere else to go. My own wisdom and that of all about me seemed insufficient
for that day." Abraham Lincoln
"To
get nations back on their feet, we must first get down on our knees." Billy Graham
“Time
spent in prayer is never wasted.” Francis Fenelon
“Fervent prayers produce phenomenal results.” Woodrow
Kroll
“Prayer
delights God’s ear; it melts His heart; and opens His hand. God cannot deny a
praying soul.” Thomas
Watson
“And
whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so
that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.” Jesus the
Christ
“Prayer
is the nearest approach to God and the highest enjoyment of Him that we are
capable of in this life.” William Law
“The
right way to pray is to stretch out our hands and ask of One who we know has
the heart of a Father.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer
“The
best and sweetest flowers of paradise God gives to His people when they are
upon their knees. Prayer is the gate of heaven.” Thomas Brooks
“O, let the place of secret prayer become to me the most beloved
spot on earth.” Andrew Murray
“When
the devil sees a man or woman who really believes in prayer, who knows how to
pray, and who really does pray, and, above all, when he sees a whole church on
its face before God in prayer, he trembles as much as he ever did, for he knows
that his day in that church or community is at an end.” R. A. Torrey
“When I pray, “coincidences” happen, and when I don’t, they
don’t.” William Temple
“There
is nothing that makes us love a man so much as praying for him.” William Law
“The
greatest tragedy of life is not unanswered prayer, but unoffered prayer.” F. B. Meyer
The blessing of prayer in one's life is hard to
calculate. Yet I believe that some day God will reveal the blessings we
forfeited, and the life-transforming benefits we turned away, by the times we
ignored it; and in the opposite sense, show us the wonderful things
we would never have experienced had it not been for the prayers that we, or
others, prayed on our behalf.
In the Bonds of the Gospel, Pastor Jeff
