Prayer- christiansquoting.org.uk

Pray today. If you have nothing else to pray about, pray for me! I need the prayer, and you need the practice!

If you can't sleep, don't count sheep. Talk to the Shepherd.

Seven prayerless days make one weak.

As long as there are tests, there will be prayer in schools.

Prayer is not a last extremity, it's a first necessity.

Prayer: don't bother to give God instructions; just report for duty.

God answers knee mail.

A lot of kneeling will keep you in good standing.

The most powerful position on earth is kneeling before the Lord of the universe.

A day hemmed in prayer is less likely to unravel.

To influence others for God, intercede with God for others.

Put everything in God's hand and eventually you will see God's hand in everything.

Now I sit me down in school
Where praying is against the rule
For this great nation under God
Finds mention of Him very odd.

If Scripture now the class recites,
It violates the Bill of Rights.
And anytime my head I bow
Becomes a Federal matter now.

Our hair can be purple, orange or green,
That's no offense; it's a freedom scene.
The law is specific, the law is precise.
Prayers spoken aloud are a serious vice.

For praying in a public hall
Might offend someone with no faith at all
In silence alone we must meditate,
God's name is prohibited by the state.

We're allowed to cuss and dress like freaks,
And pierce our noses, tongues and cheeks.
They've outlawed guns, but FIRST the Bible.
To quote the Good Book makes me liable.

We can elect a pregnant Senior Queen,
And the 'unwed daddy,' our Senior King.
It's "inappropriate" to teach right from wrong,
We're taught that such "judgments" do not belong.

We can get our condoms and birth controls,
Study witchcraft, vampires and totem poles.
But the Ten Commandments are not allowed,
No word of God must reach this crowd.

It's scary here I must confess,
When chaos reigns the school's a mess.
So, Lord, this silent plea I make:
Should I be shot; My soul please take!

I am deep in prayerful contemplation Your mind is wandering slightly He's sleeping through the sermon again!

Prayer begins where human capacity ends.-- Marian Anderson (1897-1993) In "The Speaker's Electronic Reference Collection," AApex Software, 1994.

The (TV) interviewer had asked him about the vows of celibacy and, said the cardinal: "I felt the blood drain from my body . . . I had no idea where this would lead. I said a quiet prayer to the Holy Ghost and waited for my inevitable execution. " 'Imagine,' he said, 'that you were in a crowded room and suddenly . .the most beautiful woman you had ever seen walked into that room. What would your feelings be as a man - not as a bishop or a priest?' "It was then that the Holy Ghost took a firm hold. I replied: ' I hope you're as happily married to your wife as I am to the Church. So the only way I can think of answering your question is by inviting you to imagine yourself standing next to your beloved wife in a crowded room when suddenly the most beautiful woman you have ever seen .' I didn't have to finish. There was spontaneous applause from the studio audience." NEIL BALFOUR on Basil Hume in The Times January 14 1999

True prayer is asking God what He wants. --William Barclay

Prayer is a wine which makes glad the heart of man.-- Bernard of Clairvaux (1091-1153)

The evidence of God's "Expect more" message is evident even within the short time frame of the New Testament. For example, Jesus never mentioned "giving thanks" in the Lord's Prayer. But Paul did! In Phil. 4:6, Paul not only advised Christians to pray with thanksgiving, but to "pray about everything!" Jesus didn't ask us to ask God for "wisdom" when we pray; but James did! [Jas 1:5] Jesus' model prayer never included the provision for asking God to heal the sick. But James 5:13 gives us sanction to do exactly that in our prayers. And no Christian, praying with a burden for others, to my knowledge, has ever hesitated over whether he should ask for God's help in doing a hundred other tasks, just because Jesus' Model Prayer never instituted it.- William D Blake

The last and highest result of prayer is not the securing of this or that gift, the avoiding of this or that danger. The last and highest result of prayer is the knowledge of God -- the knowledge which is eternal life -- and by that knowledge, the transformation of human character, and of the world. ... George John Blewett

There are whole periods when you are neither at the bottom of the sea nor at the top of the peak, when you have to do something about praying, and that is the period when you cannot pray from spontaneity but you can pray from conviction.-Anthony Bloom

I have often felt things in study so plainly given me, not at all like the products of my own skill, that this is the way in which I account for them. The Lord sends them because of people praying for me. - Andrew Bonar s journal: DECEMBER 18, 1846

Is prayer your steering wheel or your spare tire?... Corrie ten Boom (1892-1983)

The great danger facing all of us... is not that we shall make an absolute failure of life, nor that we shall fall into outright viciousness, nor that we shall be terribly unhappy, nor that we shall feel [that] life has no meaning at all -- not these things. The danger is that we may fail to perceive life's greatest meaning, fall short of its highest good, miss its deepest and most abiding happiness, be unable to tender the most needed service, be unconscious of life ablaze with the light of the Presence of God -- and be content to have it so -- that is the danger: that some day we may wake up and find that always we have been busy with husks and trappings of life and have really missed life itself. For life without God, to one who has known the richness and joy of life with Him, is unthinkable, impossible. That is what one prays one's friends may be spared -- satisfaction with a life that falls short of the best, that has in it no tingle or thrill that comes from a friendship with the Father. Phillips Brooks (1835-1893), Sermons

The best and sweetest flowers of Paradise God gives to his people when they are upon their knees. Prayer is the gate of heaven, a key to let us in to Paradise.- Thomas Brooks

God looks not at the elegancy of your prayers, to see how neat they are; nor yet at the geometry of your prayers, to see how long they are; nor yet at the arithmetic of your prayers, to see how many they are; nor yet at the music of your prayers, nor yet at the sweetness of your voice, nor yet at the logic of your prayers; but at the sincerity of your prayers, how hearty they are. There is no prayer acknowledged, approved, accepted, recorded, or rewarded by God, but that wherein the heart is sincerely and wholly. The true mother would not have the child divided. God loves a broken and a contrite heart, so He loathes a divided heart. God neither loves halting or halving.- Thomas Brooks

Prayer is nothing but the breathing that out before the Lord, that was first breathed into us by the Spirit of the Lord.- Thomas Brooks

Believer, closet prayer will be found to be but a lifeless, comfortless thing, if you do not enjoy communion with God in it. That should be the very soul of all your closet duties, therefore press after it, as for life; when you go into your closet banish every thing that can hinder your enjoyment of Christ. - THOMAS BROOKS

Though our private desires are ever so confused, though our private requests are ever so broken, and though our private groanings are ever so hidden from men, yet God eyes them, records them, and puts them upon the file of heaven, and will one day crown them with glorious answers and returns.- THOMAS BROOKS

When thou prayest, rather let thy heart be without words than thy words be without heart.- John Bunyan

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

Pray often; for prayer is a shield to the soul, a sacrifice to God, and a scourge for Satan. -- John Bunyan

You can do more than pray, after you have prayed, but you cannot do more than pray until you have prayed.-- John Bunyan

Prayer will make a man cease from sin, or sin will entice a man to cease from prayer.-- John Bunyan

Prayer opens the heart to God, and it is the means by which the soul, though empty, is filled by God.-- John Bunyan

And O! be sure to fear the Lord alway,
And mind your duty, duly, morn and night;
Lest in temptation's path ye gang astray,
Implore His counsel and assisting might:
They never sought in vain that sought the Lord aright.
Robert Burns, The Cotter's Saturday Night

I have made it a rule to go out and sit . . . at four o'clock every morning and ask the good Lord what I am to do that day. Then I go ahead and do it. - Carver, George Washington.

There is a communion of men with God by which, having entered the heavenly sanctuary, appeal to him in person concerning his promises in order to experience, where necessity so demands, that what they believed was not in vain, although he had promised it in word alone. John Calvin

God tolerates even our stammering, and pardons our ignorance whenever something inadvertently escapes us -- as, indeed, without this mercy there would be no freedom to pray. John Calvin (1509-1564)

As a physician, I have seen men, after all other therapy has failed, lifted out of disease and melancholy by the serene effort of prayer. It is the only power in the world that seems to overcome the so-called "laws of nature"; the occasions on which prayer has dramatically done this have been termed "miracles". But a constant, quieter miracle takes place hourly in the hearts of men and women who have discovered that prayer supplies them with a steady flow of sustaining power in their daily lives. -- Alexis Carrel (1873-1944)

I have had prayers answered - most strangely sometimes - but Ithink our heavenly Father's loving kindness has been even more evident in what He has refused me. ~ Lewis Carroll

You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing and grace before I dip the pen in the ink.- G. K. Chesterton

Keep praying, but be thankful that God's answers are wiser than your prayers. ~ William Culbertson

For those who have hidden fellowship with God,life is a continuous feast. --S G Degraff Promise and Deliverance vol 3,p 153

I throw myself down in my chamber, and I call in, and invite God, and his Angels thither, and when they are there, I neglect God and his Angels, for the noise of a fly, for the rattling of a coach, for the whining of a door. -- John Donne

Once as I rode out into the woods for my health, in 1737, having alighted from my horse in a retired place, as my manner commonly had been to walk for divine contemplation and prayer, I had a view that for me was extraordinary, of the glory of the Son of God. As near as I can judge, this continued about an hour; and kept me the greater part of the time in a flood of tears and weeping aloud. I felt an ardency of soul to be what I know not otherwise how to express, emptied and annihilated; to love Him with a pure and holy love; to serve and follow Him; to be perfectly sanctified and made pure with a divine and heavenly purity.
Jonathan Edwards

I would exhort those who have entertained a hope of their being true converts--and who since their supposed conversion have led off the duty of secret prayer, and ordinarily allow themselves in the omission of it--to throw away their hope. If you have left off calling upon God, it is time for you to leave off hoping and flattering yourselves with an imagination that you are the children of God.-- Jonathan Edwards

Prayer is as natural an expression of faith as breathing is of life.-- Jonathan Edwards

Conversation between God and mankind in this world, is maintained by God's Word on his part, and by prayer on ours. By the former, he speaks and expresses his mind to us; by the latter, we speak and express our minds to him. Sincere friendship towards God, in all who believe him to be properly an intelligent, willing being, does most apparently, directly, and strongly incline to prayer; and it no less disposes the heart strongly to desire to have our infinitely glorious and gracious Friend expressing his mind to us by his word, that we may know it. -- Jonathan Edwards

God is always present, always available. At whatever moment in which one turns to him the prayer is received, is heard, is authenticated, for it is God who gives our prayer its value and its character, not our interior dispositions, not our fervor, not our lucidity. The prayer which is pronounced for God and accepted by him becomes, by that very fact, a true prayer.... Jacques Ellul, Prayer and Modern Man, p.17 [1973].

The air which we breathe, the bread which we eat, the heart which throbs in our bosoms, are not more necessary for man that he may live as a human being, than is prayer for the Christian that he may live as a Christian. John Eudes

There are some favors the Almighty does not grant either the first, or the second, or the third time you ask him, because he wishes you to pray for a long time and often. He wills this delay to keep you in a state of humility and self-contempt and make you realize the value of his graces. John Eudes

There are some favors the Almighty does not grant either the first, or the second, or the third time you ask him, because he wishes you to pray for a long time and often. He wills this delay to keep you in a state of humility and self-contempt and make you realize the value of his graces. John Eudes

Oh, study your hearts, watch your hearts, keep your hearts! Away with empty names and vain shows; away with unprofitable discourse and bold censures of others. Turn in upon yourselves, get into your closets, and now resolve to dwell there. You have been strangers to this work too long; you have kept other vineyards too long; you have trifled about the borders of religion too long. Will you now resolve to look better to your hearts? Will you hate and come out of the crowds of business and clamors of the world and retire yourselves more than you have done? Oh, that this day you would resolve upon it! - JOHN FLAVEL

I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth--that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? --Benjamin Franklin, debates in the Constitutional Convention, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, June 28, 1787.&emdash;James Madison, Journal of the Federal Convention, ed. E. H. Scott
A check of the record shows that Franklin was trying to break the angry stalemate about representation of the smaller states by urging that the delegates start the next day by having someone come in to say prayers.The convention adjourned for the day without acting on the idea. On thesurviving copy of his motion (Franklin was weak and had it written outto be read aloud by someone else), Franklin wrote:
The convention, except three or four persons, thought prayer unnecessary.-- Max Farrand (ed.), _The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787_ (June 27)
William C. Waterhouse

Prayer...the key of the day and the lock of the night- Thomas Fuller

I'd rather see a sermon than hear one any day;
I'd rather one should walk with me than merely tell the way. - Edgar Guest

Those blessings are sweetest that are won with prayers and worn with thanks.-- Thomas Goodwin

The quiet hour of prayer is one of the most favorable opportunities he has in which to speak to us seriously. In quietude and solitude before the face of God, our souls can hear better than at any other time." - O.Hallesby

It is not necessary to maintain a conversation when we are in the presence of God. We can come into His presence and rest our weary souls in quiet contemplation of Him. Our groanings, which cannot be uttered, rise to Him and tell Him better than words how dependent we are upon Him.... O. Hallesby, Prayer [1931]

A godly father, sitting on a draught
To do as need and nature hath us taught,
Mumbled (as was his manner) certain prayers,
And unto him the devil straight repairs,
And boldly to revile him he begins,
Alleging that such prayers were deadly sins
And that he shewed he was devoid of grace
To speak to God from so unmeet a place.

The reverent man, though at the first dismayed,
Yet strong in faith, to Satan thus he said:
Thou damned spirit, wicked, false and lying,
Despairing thine own good, and ours envying,
Each take his due, and me thou canst not hurt,
To God my prayer 1 meant, to thee the dirt.
Pure prayer ascends to Him that high doth sit,
Down falls the filth, for fiends of hell more fit.
Sir John Harington *Metamorphosis of Ajax*

If a church wants a better pastor, it can get one by praying for the one it has. Robert E. Harris

It is ours to offer what we can, His to supply what we cannot. -- . Jerome

I have now spent fifty-five years in resolving: having, from the earliest time almost that I can remember, been forming plans of a better life. I have done nothing. The need of doing, therefore, is pressing, since the time of doing is short. O GOD, grant me to resolve aright, and to keep my resolutions, for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen. Samuel Johnson

Madness frequently discovers itself merely by unnecessary deviation from the usual modes of the world. My poor friend Smart showed the disturbance of his mind, by falling upon his knees, and saying his prayers in the street, or in any other unusual place. Now although, rationally speaking, it is greater madness not to pray at all, than to pray as Smart did, I am afraid there are so many who do not pray that their understanding is not called in question.- Samuel Johnson (Boswell: Life of Johnson)

It is enough if we have stated seasons of prayer; no matter when. A man may as well pray when he mounts his horse, or a woman when she milks her cow, as at meals; and custom is to be followed.- Samuel Johnson (Boswell: Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides)

Prayer is not overcoming God's reluctance. It is laying hold of His willingness. This is our Lord's will, ... that our prayer and our trust be, alike, large. For if we do not trust as much as we pray, we fail in full worship to our Lord in our prayer; and also wehinder and hurt ourselves. The reason is that we do not know truly that our Lord is the ground from which our prayer springeth; nor do we know that it is given us by his grace and his love. If we knew this, it would make us trust to have of our Lord's gifts all that we desire. For I am sure that no man asketh mercy and grace with sincerity, without mercy and grace being given to him first.-- Juliana of Norwich (1342?-1417), Revelations of Divine Love

Prayer can no more be divorced from worship than life can be divorced from breathing. If we follow his impulse, the Holy Spirit will always lead us to pray. When we allow him to work freely, he will always bring the Church to extensive praying. Conversely, when the Spirit is absent, we will find excuses not to pray. We may say, "God understands. He knows I love him. But I'm tired . . . I'm so busy . . . It's just not convenient now . . ." When the Spirit is absent, our excuses always seem right, but in the presence of the Spirit our excuses fade away K. T. Kendall

There is nothing that makes us love a man so much as praying for him. --William Law (1686-1761)

We don't pray to change God. We pray to change ourselves. --C S Lewis., 'The Pilgrim's Regress'

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

The prayer of faith is the instrument which releases the mighty acts of the risen Christ in history.- Richard Lovelace, (Dynamics of Spiritual Life, p. 156)

Our prayers may be awkward. Our attempts may be feeble. But since the power of prayer is in the one who hears it and not in the one who says it, our prayers do make a difference. ~ Max Lucado

Pray, and let God worry. Martin Luther

Whenever I happen to be prevented by the press of duties from observing my hour of prayer, the entire day is bad for me. MARTIN LUTHER

All who call on God in true faith, earnestly from the heart, will certainly be heard, and will receive what they have asked and desired, although not in the hour or in the measure, or the very thing which they ask; yet they will obtain something greater and more glorious than they had dared to ask. ... Martin Luther (1483-1546)

'When Luther's puppy [n. 116, Luther's dog Tölpel is mentioned again and again in the Table Talk.] happened to be at the table, looked for a morsel from his master, and watched with open mouth and motionless eyes, he [Martin Luther] said, "Oh, if I could only pray the way this dog watches the meat! All his thoughts are concentrated on the piece of meat. Otherwise he has no thought, wish, or hope.
Luther's Works, Volume 54, Table Talk (Philadelphia: 1967), pp. 37, 38. May 18, 1532

I have so much to do (today) that I should spend the first three hours in prayer. ... Martin Luther (1483-1546)

Hunger may drive the runaway child home, and he may or may not be fed at home; but he needs his mother more than his dinner. Communion with God is the one need of the soul beyond all other need: prayer is the beginning of that communion, and some need is the motive of that prayer... So begins a communion, a talking with God, a coming-to-one with Him, which is the sole end of prayer, yea, of existence itself in its infinite phases. We must ask that we may receive; but that we should receive what we ask in respect of our lower needs, is not God's end in making us pray, for He could give us everything without that: to bring His child to His knee, God withholds that man may ask.... George MacDonald (1824-1905), "The Word of Jesus on Prayer"

Rose early to seek God and found Him whom my soul loveth. Who would not rise early to meet such company?'
Robert Murray McCheyne, journal: 23.2.1834.

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 M'Cheyne (1813-1843)

God will either give you what you ask, or something far better.... Robert Murray M'Cheyne (1813-1843)

The great tragedy of life is not unanswered prayer, but unoffered prayer.--F.B. Meyer

Every evening I turn my troubles over to God - He's going to be up all night anyway. -- Donald J. Morganp

I can hardly recollect a single plan of mine, of which I have not since seen reason to be satisfied, that had it taken place in season and circumstance just as I proposed, it would, humanly speaking, have proved my ruin; or at least it would have deprived me of the greater good the Lord had designed for me. We judge of things by their present appearances, but the Lord sees them in their consequences, if we could do so likewise we should be perfectly of His mind; but as we cannot, it is an unspeakable mercy that He will manage for us, whether we are pleased with His management or not; and it is spoken of as one of his heaviest judgments, when He gives any person or people up to the way of their own hearts, and to walk after their own counsels. JOHN NEWTON

How great and honorable is the privilege of a true believer! That he has neither wisdom nor strength in himself is no disadvantage, for he is connected with infinite wisdom and almighty power. John Newton, letter: 23.2.1775

"What Thou wilt, when Thou wilt, how Thou wilt." I had rather speak these three sentences from my heart in my mother tongue than be master of all the languages in Europe.-- John Newton, letter: 23. 4.1779

The discussion of prayer is so great that it requires the Father to reveal it, His firstborn Word to teach it, and the Spirit to enable us to think and speak rightly of so great a subject.... Origen (c.185-c.254)

No heart can conceive that treasury of mercies which lies in this one privilege, in having liberty and ability to approach unto God at all times, according to His mind and will. John Owen (1616-1683)

He who prays as he ought will endeavour to live as he prays. ... John Owen (1616-1683)

A minister may fill his pews, his communion roll, the mouths of the public, but what that minister is on his knees in secret before God Almighty, that he is and no more. JOHN OWEN

If we would talk less and pray more about them, things would be be better than they are in the world; at least, we should be better enabled to bear them. JOHN OWEN

We implore the mercy of God, not that He may leave us at peace in our vices, but that He may deliver us from them.... Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)

Perhaps one reson God delays His answers to our prayers is because He knows we need to be with Him far more than we need the things we ask of Him. ~ Ben Patterson

Nothing is too great and nothing is too small to commit into the hands of the Lord. ... A. W. Pink (1886-1952)

Happiest are they who mix prayer and toil, until God answers the one and rewards the other. --Irenaeus Prime

A sinning man will stop praying. A praying man will stop sinning. - Leonard Ravenhill

God may not always come when you call Him, but He's ALWAYS right on time. --Sydney Redoble

Let prayer be the key of the day, and the bolt of the night.-- Jean Paul Richter.

Dry wells send us to the fountain. Samuel Rutherford

I have been benefited by praying for others; for by making an errand to God for them I have gotten something for myself.- S. Rutherford

Fear not because your prayer is stammering, your words feeble, and your language poor. Jesus can understand you. Just as a mother understands the first lispings of her infant, so does the blessed Savior understand sinners. He can read a sigh, and see a meaning in a groan. ... J. C. Ryle (1816-1900), "A Call to Prayer"

Faith is to the soul what life is to the body. Prayer is to faith what breath is to the body. How a person can live and not breathe is past my comprehension, and how a person can believe and not pray is past my comprehension too. ... J. C. Ryle, "A Call to Prayer"

To be prayerless is to be without God, without Christ, without grace, without hope, and without heaven. ... J. C. Ryle (1816-1900), "A Call to Prayer"

ray not for lighter burdens but for stronger backs.- Theodore Roosevelt, 1858 - 1919

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 thedesire 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 (1889-1929)

How often we say about our earthly friends, 'I really would like to have a good quiet settled talk with them so that I can really get to know them.' And shouldn't we feel the same about our Heavenly Friend, that we may really get to know Him? These thoughts have taught me the importance of the children of God taking time to commune daily with their Father, so that they may get to know His mind and to understand better what His will is." -Hannah Whitall Smith, (1832-1911), journal entry of 7/6/1859[M.E. Dieter, ed. CHRISTIAN'S SECRET OF THE HOLY LIFE: UNPUBLISHED PERSONAL WRITINGS OF HANNAH WHITALL SMITH (Zondervan, 1994), p.21]

[to his 12 yr. old son, Charles] Dear boy, I should like you to preach, but it is best that you pray. Many a preacher has proved a castaway, but never one person who had truly learned to pray. C. H. Spurgeon. Letters, p.103

Frequently we pray that God would not forsake us in the hour of trial and temptation, but we too much forget that we have need to use this prayer at all times. There is no moment of our life, however holy, in which we can do without His constant upholding. Whether in light or in darkness, in communion or in temptation, we alike need the prayer, "Forsake me not, O Lord." "Hold Thou me up, and I shall be safe.--C. H. Spurgeon Meditation for This Morning Monday, May 25

Whether we like it or not, asking is the rule of the Kingdom. --Charles H. Spurgeon (1834-1892)

Oh, I wish that God had not given me what I prayed for! It was not so good as I thought! - Johanna Spyri (1827 &endash; 1901)

Battering the gates of heaven with storms of prayer. - Tennyson, Alfred, Lord (1809 - 1892) St Simeon Stylites

More things are wrought by prayer
Than this world dreams of.
Wherefore, let thy voice
Rise like a fountain for me night and day.
For what are men better than sheep or goats
That nourish a blind life within the brain,
If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer
Both for themselves and those who call them friend?
For so the whole round earth is every way
Bound by gold chains about the feet of God.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)
The life of prayer is just love to God, and the custom of being ever with Him.... Teresa of Avila (1515-1582)

The truth is that God always answers the prayer that accords with His will as revealed in the Scriptures, provided the one who prays is obedient and trustful. Further than this we dare not go. --A. W. Tozer

Prayer is never an acceptable substitute for obedience. The sovereign Lord accepts no offering from His creatures that is not accompanied by obedience.
A. W. Tozer

Have you noticed how much praying for revival has been going on of late -- and how little revival has resulted? I believe the problem is that we have been trying to substitute praying for obeying, and it simply will not work. To pray for revival while ignoring the plain precept laid down in Scripture is to waste a lot of words and get nothing for our trouble. Prayer will become effective when we stop using it as a substitute for obedience.... A. W. Tozer (1897-1963)

Anyone can lead a "prayer-life" -- that is, the sort of reasonable devotional life to which each is called by God. This only involves making a suitable rule and making up your mind to keep it however boring this may be.... Evelyn Underhill (1875-1941)

Jesus Christ was more willing to go to the cross, than we are to the throne of grace. Thomas Watson

Go to bed seasonably, and rise early. Redeem your precious time: pick up the fragments of it, that not one moment of it may be lost. Be much in secret prayer. Converse less with man, and more with God. GEORGE WHITEFIELD

Venture daily upon Christ, go out in His strength, and He will enable you to do wonders.-George Whitefield , letter: 26 July 1741