by J.C. Ryle
Let us pray more heartily in private, and throw our whole souls more into our prayers. There are live prayers and there are dead prayers; prayers that cost us nothing, and prayers which often cost us strong crying and tears. What are yours? When great professors backslide in public, and the church is surprised and shocked, the truth is that they had long ago backslidden on their knees. They had neglected the throne of grace.
by J.C. Ryle
by A.W. Tozer
And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age. Matthew 28:20b
It is hardly possible to overstress the importance of unceasing inward prayer on the part of the one who would live the God-conscious life. Prayer at stated times is good and right; we will never outgrow the need of it while we remain on earth. But this kind of prayer must be supported and perfected by the habit of constant, unspoken prayer. But someone may question whether in a world like this it is possible to think of God constantly. Would it not be too great a burden to try to keep God constantly in the focus of our minds while carrying on our normal activities in this noisy and highly complex civilization? Francois Malaval had the answer to this: "The wings of the dove do not weigh it down," he said. "They carry and support it. And so the thought of God is never a burden; it is a gentle breeze which bears us up, a hand which supports us and raises us, a light which guides us, and a spirit which vivifies us though we do not feel its working."
by J.C. Ryle
Make it your daily prayer that you may have an increase of faith. According to your faith will be your peace. Cultivate that blessed root more, and sooner or later, by God’s blessing, you may hope to have the flower. You may not perhaps attain to full assurance at once: it is good sometimes to be kept waiting; we do not value things that we get without trouble. But though it tarry, wait for it. Seek on, and expect to find.
by J.C. Ryle
. . . praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit . . . —Ephesians 6:18
As we continue on in our intercession for others, we may find that our obedience to God in interceding is going to cost those for whom we intercede more than we ever thought. The danger in this is that we begin to intercede in sympathy with those whom God was gradually lifting up to a totally different level in direct answer to our prayers. Whenever we step back from our close identification with God’s interest and concern for others and step into having emotional sympathy with them, the vital connection with God is gone. We have then put our sympathy and concern for them in the way, and this is a deliberate rebuke to God.
Once we have taken a problem to God, we should cease to concern ourselves with it. We should turn our backs upon it and centre our gaze upon God.
Is not this precisely where we go astray? We have a perplexity, and we have applied the prophetic method … [see December 20]. But still we do not find satisfaction, and we do not quite know what to do … Having failed to reach a solution, despite seeking the guidance of the Holy Spirit, there is nothing more to do but to take it to God in prayer. But so frequently … the moment we get up from our knees we begin to worry about the problem again.
Now if you do that, you might just as well not have prayed. If you take your problem to God, leave it with God. You have no right to brood over it any longer … Leave it with God, and go on to the watch-tower [Habakkuk 2:1] … We have to extricate ourselves deliberately, to haul ourselves out of it, as it were … and then take our stand looking to God—not at the problem … Looking to God means not dealing with a problem yourself, not consulting other people, but depending entirely upon God, and ‘waiting’ only upon Him …
by A.B. Simpson
For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities—Hebrews 4:15
Some time ago I was talking with a greatly suffering woman about healing. She was quite burdened physically and sincerely wanted to be able to trust the Lord for deliverance. After a short conversation I prayed with her, committing her case to the Lord, asking that in absolute trust she might claim deliverance.
As soon as I ended my prayer she grasped my hand and asked me to unite with her in the burden that was most upon her heart. And then, without a word of reference to her own healing or the burden under which she was being crushed to death, she burst into an impassioned prayer for an orphan boy of whom she had just heard that day. Never have I heard a prayer surpass it for sympathy and love, as she implored God in agonizing sobs to help him and save him. And then she ceased without even referring to her own need.
Is not this one of the most wonderful things in the whole of Scripture, that the God who is the Creator and Sustainer of the universe, the God who is forming His eternal kingdom and who will usher it in at the end, the God to whom the nations are but as ‘the small dust of the balance’ — that such a God should be prepared to consider your little needs and mine even down to the minutest details in this matter of daily bread? But that is the teaching of our Lord everywhere. He tells us that even a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without our Father, and that we are of much greater value than many sparrows … If only we could grasp this fact, that the almighty Lord of the universe is interested in every part and portion of us! … the smallest and most trivial details in my little life are known to Him on His everlasting throne … But that is the way of God, ‘the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy’; who nevertheless, as Isaiah tells us, dwells with him also ‘that is of a contrite and humble spirit’. That is the whole miracle of redemption; that is the whole meaning of the incarnation which tells us that the Lord Jesus Christ takes hold of us here on earth and links us with the almighty God of glory. The kingdom of God, and my daily bread!
Do not quench the Spirit —1 Thessalonians 5:19
The voice of the Spirit of God is as gentle as a summer breeze— so gentle that unless you are living in complete fellowship and oneness with God, you will never hear it. The sense of warning and restraint that the Spirit gives comes to us in the most amazingly gentle ways. And if you are not sensitive enough to detect His voice, you will quench it, and your spiritual life will be impaired. This sense of restraint will always come as a “still small voice” ( 1 Kings 19:12 ), so faint that no one except a saint of God will notice it.
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