Prayer Quotes

PRAYER DOESN’T JUST CHANGE US, IT ALSO CHANGES THINGS

E. M. BOUNDS
“We have much fine writing and learned talk about…how prayer serves its full measure of results, not by affecting God, but by affecting us, by becoming a training school for those who pray. How well all this may look, and how reasonable so ever it may seem, there is nothing of it in the Bible. The clear and repeated language of the Bible is that PRAYER IS TO BE ANSWERED by God… That as a Father he gives to us when we ask… The best praying, therefore, is praying that gets an answer”.

ANDREW MURRAY
“We need this simple, confident faith that God will give us what we ask for… God’s word provides everything needed to stir and strengthen such faith in us… Scripture shows us how God is waiting, delighting to bestow these blessings in answered prayer. In a thousand promises and testimonies, it urges us to believe that prayer will be heard and that what we cannot possibly do for ourselves can be done by prayer”.

MICK BICKLE
“By praying, we can both release God’s blessing in greater measure and cut off the work of the enemy, who seeks to devour our finances, break our bodies, ruin our relationships, oppress our hearts, and destroy our families. Through prayer we can hinder his destruction in our lives. God opens doors of blessing and closes doors of oppression in response to prayer. When we pray, doors of demonic oppression can be shut. We have authority in Jesus’s name to stop demonic activity and to release angelic activity in our lives and the lives of others. God will not do our part, and we cannot do His part.”
Growing in Prayer: A Real-Life Guide to Talking with God (p. 6).

OUR PRAYERS CAN CHANGE THE COURSE OF HISTORY

RICHARD FOSTER
“We are working with God to determine the future. Certain things will happen in history if we pray rightly”.

GOD’S WILL IS NOT BEING DONE. WE ARE PRAYING FOR GOD TO EXERT HIS AUTHORITY OVER SATAN, CIRCUMSTANCES, SIN, DEATH, PEOPLE, ETC.

JENTZEN FRANKLIN
“Everything God wants to do is linked to you praying”

MIKE BICKLE
“The essence of effective prayer is that we speak in agreement with God. Therefore, one important aspect of prayer is telling God what He tells us to tell Him. The Word shows us what He promises to release to His people, and we simply pray these things back to Him.”
Growing in Prayer: A Real-Life Guide to Talking with God (p. 7).

MICK BICKLE
“Do not measure your prayers by how you feel when you pray them but by the extent to which they are in agreement with God’s will and Word. Beloved, our weak prayer times may not move us, but they move the heart of God.”
Growing in Prayer: A Real-Life Guide to Talking with God (pp. 9-10).

GOD DOES NOT WORK ON AUTOMATIC. HE OFTEN WAITS UNTIL WE ASK.

MIKE BICKLE
“One foundational principle of the kingdom is that God releases more blessing if we ask for it. He could easily release all His blessings to us without our asking, but He wants us to be involved in the process. Most of us know the Bible verse that teaches us we have not because we ask not (James 4:2). God wants us to do more than simply think about our needs; He wants us to ask Him to meet them. Many complain about their lives or their circumstances and even talk to others about them, but they do not speak their needs out to the Lord. It is easy to think about our needs without verbalizing them. Why does God insist on our asking? It is because the “asking” leads to a greater heart-connect with Him. Therefore, He “starves us out” of our prayer-less lives by withholding certain blessings until we ask—until we actually talk to Him about them. When the pressure caused by the lack of His blessing is greater than our busyness, then we pray more. And in the process of praying, we connect with Him relationally.”
Growing in Prayer: A Real-Life Guide to Talking with God (pp. 7-8).

OUR PRAYERS CAN HASTEN THE PROMISES OF GOD

E. M. BOUNDS
“Go show thyself to Ahab and I will send rain on the earth,” was God’s command and promise to his servant Elijah after the sore famine had cursed the land. Many glorious results marked that day…but there was no rain. The one thing, the only thing, which God had promised, had not been given. The day was declining, and the awestruck crowds were faint, and yet held by an invisible hand. Elijah turns…to God…But seven times is the restless eagerness of the prophet stayed. Not till the seventh repeated time is his vigilance rewarded and the promise pressed to its final fulfillment. Elijah’s fiery, relentless praying bore to its triumphant results the promise of God, and the rain descended in full showers.
Why do the eternal purposes of God move so tardily? Why are they so poorly executed? Our failure to appropriate the divine promises and rest our faith on them, and to pray believing is the solution. “We have not because we ask not.”

CHARLES SPURGEON
“Why, if anyone gave us a check and we did not go to have it cashed—though we might want the money badly enough—but suppose we said, “I don’t like to go”—there would be some slur cast upon the character of the man whose signature had made it valid. And so when a Christian gets a Promise, if he does not take it to God he dishonors Him. But when faith in all its raggedness, poverty and sickness about it, goes to God and says, “Lord, I have nothing to recommend me but this, ‘You have said it’—here is the Promise, Lord, give me the fulfillment.” God smiles and says, “Ay, My child, I love to see you trust Me. Here, take back the fulfillment and go on your way rejoicing.”

CHARLES SPURGEON
ALL THAT FAITH WANTS TO BUILD UPON IS WHAT GOD HAS SAID. “Do as You have said.” The only solid foothold that faith has is, “It is written, God has said it.” When a sinner comes to God he must have nothing else to rely upon except this, “Do as You have said.” There is a tendency in most men’s minds to bring before God something which He did not say. Many of you, I dare say, will go and ask God in prayer for something for which you cannot prove a positive Promise that He will ever give it to you… Now, that is all wrong. We must, when we come to God, say only, “Lord, do as You have said.”

CHARLES SPURGEON
My faith can, on this Promise, live. I know that on this Promise it never can die. But faith wants neither testimonies of man, nor learning of philosophers, nor eloquence of orators, nor rhapsodies, nor visions, nor revelations. It wants nothing else applied to the heart but what God has said. And it goes to God and says, “Lord, do as You have said.”

OUR PRAYERS CAN CHANGE GOD’S MIND

ANDREW MURAY
“God does indeed allow Himself to be decided by prayer to do what He otherwise would not have done.”

PHILLIP YANCEY
“Three times God commanded Jeremiah to stop praying. God wanted no alteration in his plans to punish a rebellious nation. Prayer had, after all, softened God’s resolve before”.

ANDREW MURRAY
“The blessing of prayer is that you can ask and receive what you will; the highest exercise and the glory of prayer is that persevering importunity can prevail and obtain what God at first could not and would not give”

MICHAEL CATT
“A powerful prayer is the one that does not let go. It does not quit. It is profitable and powerful because it is persistent”.

CHARLES SPURGEON
“If you are sure it is a right thing for which you are asking, plead now, plead at noon, plead at night, plead on. With cries and tears spread out your case. Order your arguments. Back up your pleas with reasons. Urge the precious blood of Jesus. Bring out the atoning sacrifice. Point to Calvary. Enlist the Priest who stands at the right hand of God. And resolve in your very soul that if souls not be saved, if your family not be blessed, if your own zeal be not revived, yet you will die with the plea on your lips and with the appealing wish on your spirits”.

PHILLIP YANCEY
“I approach God at first in fear and trembling, only to learn that God wants me to stop groveling and start arguing. I dare not meekly accept the state of the world, with all its injustice and unfairness. I must call God to account for god’s own promises”.

THE BIBLE GIVES US EVERY REASON TO BELIEVE THAT GOD WILL GIVE US WHAT WE ASK FOR

MARTIN LUTHER
“Because he is God, he also claims the honor of giving far more abundantly and liberally than anyone can comprehend—like an eternal, inexhaustible fountain, which, the more it gushes forth and overflows, the more it continues to give. He desires nothing more from us than that we ask many and great things of him. And, on the contrary, he is angered if we do not ask and demand with confidence”.

ANDREW MURRAY
“He knows our hearts. He knows that doubt and distrust toward Him are natural to us and that we view prayer as religious work without expecting an answer”

E. M. BOUNDS
“The clear and repeated language of the Bible is that PRAYER IS TO BE ANSWERED by God… That as a Father he gives to us when we ask… The best praying, therefore, is praying that gets an answer”.

CHARLES SPURGEON
“Without faith it is impossible to please God.” That is to say, do what you may, strive as earnestly as you can, live as excellently as you please, make what sacrifices you choose, be as eminent as you can for everything that is lovely and of good repute—yet none of these things can be pleasing to God unless they are mixed with faith.

CHARLES SPURGEON
“Unbelief, you see, has the mark of Cain upon its forehead. God hates it—God has dealt hard blows upon it—and God will ultimately crush it. Unbelief dishonors God. Every other crime touches God’s territory. But unbelief aims a blow at His divinity, impeaches His veracity, denies His goodness, blasphemes His attributes, maligns His character. Therefore, God of all things, hates first and chiefly, unbelief, wherever it is”.

CHARLES SPURGEON
“His sin was unbelief. He doubted the promise of God. In this particular case unbelief took the form of a doubt of the Divine veracity, or a mistrust of God’s power. Either he doubted whether God really meant what He said, or whether it was within the range of possibility that God should fulfill His promise”.

CHARLES SPURGEON
“Faith fosters every virtue—unbelief murders every one. Thousands of prayers have been strangled in their infancy by unbelief. Unbelief has been guilty of infanticide. It has murdered many an infant petition, many a song of praise that would have swelled the chorus of the skies, has been stifled by an unbelieving murmur. Many a noble enterprise conceived in the heart has been blighted by unbelief before it could come forth. Many a man would have been a missionary, would have stood and preached his Master’s Gospel boldly—but he had unbelief. Once make a giant unbelieving and he becomes a dwarf—Faith is the Samsonian lock of the Christian—cut it off and you may put out his eyes—and he can do nothing”.

GOD DOESN’T WANT US TO TAKE NO FOR AN ANSWER

MIKE BICKLE
“We must be careful not to become offended with Him when He delays the answer to a prayer. Those who become offended with God often conclude that prayer is not effective and is therefore worthless. But we must trust His leadership in the manner and timing in which He answers our prayers. The delay of answered prayer is designed to provoke earnestness in us.”
Growing in Prayer: A Real-Life Guide to Talking with God (p. 28).

CHARLES SPURGEON
“If for a while the heavens are as brass and your prayer only echoes in thunder above your head, pray on; if month after month your prayer appears to have miscarried, and no reply has been vouchsafed to you, yet still continue to draw nigh unto the Lord. Do not abandon the mercy-seat for any reason whatever. If it be a good thing that you have been asking for, and you are sure it is according to the divine will, if the vision tarry wait for it, pray, weep, entreat, wrestle, agonise till you get that which you are praying for”.

MICHAEL CATT
“A powerful prayer is the one that does not let go. It does not quit. It is profitable and powerful because it is persistent”

MICHAEL CATT
Our praying should be persistent even when the answer doesn’t come quickly. It’s not that God is reluctant… He is willing and ready to answer, but because of the apathy in our hearts we are often flippant in our requests.

ANDREW MURRAY
“In our intercession, we may find that there is difficulty and delay with the answer. It may be as if God says… ‘I cannot…give thee’. It is not easy, against all appearances, to maintain our confidence that He will hear and to persevere in full assurance that we will have what we ask for. And yet this is what God looks for from us. He so highly prizes our confidence in Him, it is so essentially the highest honour the creature can show the Creator, that He will do anything to train us in the exercise of this trust in Him. Blessed is the man who is not staggered by God’s delay or silence or apparent refusal. Such faith perseveres…and cannot fail to inherit blessing”

ANDREW MURRAY
“If no answer comes, we are not to sit down in resignation and suppose that it’s not God’s will to give us an answer. There must be something in the prayer that is not as God would have it We must seek guidance to pray so that the answer will come. It is far easier for the flesh to submit without the answer then to yield itself to being searched and purified by the Spirit, until it has learned the prayer of faith”

BARNES
He often hears prayers and grants blessings even long after they appear to be unanswered or withheld. He leaves them to persevere for months or years, until they feel entirely their dependence on him, until they see that they can obtain the blessing in no other way…But let no one despair. If the thing is for our good, and if it is proper that it should be granted, God will give it. Let us first ask aright; let us see that our minds are in a proper state; let us feel our need of the blessing; let us inquire whether God has promised such a blessing, and then let us persevere until God gives it.

E. M. BOUNDS
We are ever ready to excuse our lack of earnest and toilsome praying by a fancied and delusive view of submission. We often end praying just when we ought to begin. We quit praying when God waits and is waiting for us to really pray. We are deterred by obstacles from praying, or we succumb to difficulties, and call it submission to God’s will… Spiritual laziness and half-heartedness in prayer is covered under the high and pious name of submission.

PHILLIP YANCEY
“Raise your voice…Strive on, like the shameless neighbour in the middle of the night. Keep pounding the door” –

MARTIN LUTHER
Our Lord could not help but hear me; I threw a sack down before his door. I rubbed god’s ear with all his promises about hearing prayer…I besought the Almighty with great vigour. I attacked him with his own weapons, quoting from Scripture all the promises that I could remember, that prayers should be granted, and said that he must grant my prayer. If I was henceforth to put faith in his promises.

KARL BARTH
“When we are at our wits end for an answer, then the Holy Spirit can give us an answer. But how can He give us an answer when we are still well supplied with all sorts of answers of our own?”

DUTCH SHEETS (Praying for someone to awake from a Coma)
“A lack of endurance is one of the greatest causes of defeat, especially in prayer. We don’t wait well. We’re into microwaving; God on the other hand, is usually into marinating. So I persisted for a year, and as I did my faith grew until I knew deep inside we were going to win”

CHARLES SPURGEON
“Never give up praying, not even though Satan should suggest to you that it is in vain for you to cry unto God”.

GEORGE MUELLER
“It is not enough to begin to pray, nor to pray aright; nor is it enough to continue for a time to pray; but we must pray patiently, believing, continue in prayer until we obtain an answer.”

MIKE BICKLE
“We must refuse to be denied answers to prayers that are in agreement with God’s will. We must not stop asking and thanking God for the answers until we see them with our eyes. We must not be casual about our prayer requests but persistent and tenacious.”
Growing in Prayer: A Real-Life Guide to Talking with God (p. 24).

THERE MIGHT BE SATANIC OPPOSITION TO OUR PRAYERS

MIKE BICKLE
“By praying, we can both release God’s blessing in greater measure and cut off the work of the enemy, who seeks to devour our finances, break our bodies, ruin our relationships, oppress our hearts, and destroy our families. Through prayer we can hinder his destruction in our lives. God opens doors of blessing and closes doors of oppression in response to prayer. When we pray, doors of demonic oppression can be shut. We have authority in Jesus’s name to stop demonic activity and to release angelic activity in our lives and the lives of others. God will not do our part, and we cannot do His part.”
Growing in Prayer: A Real-Life Guide to Talking with God (p. 6).

PRAYER IS THE KEY TO FULFILLING THE GREAT COMMISSION

YONGGI CHO
“Prayer is the foundation of church growth and revival”

RICK WARREN
“I have discovered one great common denominator found in every growing church…leadership that is not afraid to believe God. Growing churches are led by leaders who expect their congregation to grow. They are people of faith…even in discouraging times”

RICK WARREN
“God is not obligated to empower your ‘to do’ list. If you want to revitalize your life, your ministry, your church, your denomination, then you need to focus on the greatest task, and not some subtask”

CHARLES SPURGEON
“Beloved friends, this church ought to pray without ceasing. We have been in years past notable for prayer. If ever a church has prayed it has been this church. I might find many faults with some who hinder prayer, but yet I must say in God’s sight I know and feel that there has been living prayer in this church for many years, and hence it is we have had many years of peace and prosperity. We have lacked nothing because we have not lacked prayer. I do not doubt we might have had much more if we had prayed more; still prayer has been very mighty here”.

WE ARE CALLED TO DO GREAT THINGS FOR GOD

WILLIAM CAREY
“Expect great things from God, attempt great things for God”

BOB BEAUCHAMP
“We’re going to try something so big, that if God’s not in it, it will surely fail”.

PHILLIP BROOKS
“You never become truly spiritual by sitting down and wishing to become so. You must undertake something so great that you cannot accomplish it unaided”

BRUCE WILKINSON
“Everyone else in the boat stayed put. They had all spent the same months & years with Jesus, seen the same miracles, listened to the same teachings. They all held to the same correct theology. But only Peter took a risk of faith – and only Peter experienced a miracle” (referring to Peter getting out of the boat)

BRUCE WILKINSON
“God wants to begin with you now. He’s not waiting for you to become someone else before He can use you. He’s not waiting for you to go somewhere else. Your Father knows you intimately, and HE has already given you strategic opportunities, passions, interests, and capabilities. These are the starting points for how He will touch the world through you”.

ANDREW MURRAY
“Faith expects from God what is beyond all expectation”

JOHN ANDREW HOLMES
“Never tell a young person that anything cannot be done. God may have been waiting centuries for someone ignorant enough of the impossible to do that very thing”

WILLIAM SHED
“A ship in a harbour is safe, but that is not what ships are built for”

RICK WARREN
“I’m not confident, but I’m courageous…I do stuff that scares me to death. When you live that kind of life, it’s amazing to see the fruit”

JIM ROHN
“Asking is the beginning of receiving. Make sure you don’t go to the ocean with a teaspoon. At least take a bucket so the kids won’t laugh at you”

CHARLES SPURGEON
“Prayers are heard in heaven in proportion to our faith. Little faith gets very little mercies, but great faith still greater”

CHARLES SWINDOLL
“God is still looking for the man or woman who will believe him, despite weakness and doubts, and become a mighty tool in his hand”

GOD INVITES US TO COME AS WE ARE

FRANCIS CHAN
“Sometimes I waited a few days or even weeks before talking to Him because I wanted to have a period of proving myself. In doing this I acted like a slave and obeyed as well as I could. I figured I could still serve Him even though I felt uncomfortable having a real conversation with Him… This was the regular pattern for me. I wanted to prove that I was sorry for what I did by being faithful for a period of time, I wanted to develop a good track record before pursuing my relationship with Him again. I wanted God to see that I could be a good servant. Then I felt good enough to talk to God again. But GOD DIDN’T WANT A GOOD SLAVE WHO TRIED REALLY HARD. HE WANTED ME TO SEE THAT HE WAS A GOOD FATHER.

CONDITIONS TO ANSWERED PRAYER

MIKE BICKLE
✦   Faith (Matt. 21:21–22; Mark 11:23–24; 1 John 5:14–15)
✦   Right relationships, particularly husbands honoring wives (1 Pet. 3:7)
✦   A righteous (holy) life (Ps. 66:18; Isa. 59:2; 1 John 3:19–22)
✦   Earnestness (persistence) (Isa. 30:18–19; 62:6–7; Matt. 7:7–11; Luke 11:5–13; 18:1–8; James 5:17)
✦   In accordance with the will of God (1 John 5:14–15)
✦   In the name of Jesus (John 14:13–14, 26; 16:23–24)
✦   Pure motives (James 4:2–3)
✦   Boldness (Heb. 4:16)
✦   Forgiveness (Matt. 6:15; 5:23–24)
✦   Prayer of agreement, in unity (Matt. 18:19–20).
Growing in Prayer: A Real-Life Guide to Talking with God (pp. 29-30).

OUR PRAYERS ARE NOT FORGOTTEN

MICK BICKLE
In Revelation 5 we learn that all the prayers prayed in God’s will throughout history are stored in golden bowls near the throne: “The twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each having a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints” (Rev. 5:8; see also Rev. 8:1–6). Notice that the bowls will one day be “full.” The fact that the bowls of prayer in heaven fill up implies that God does not forget our prayers. He still remembers our prayers from five years ago or even twenty years ago. We may have forgotten them, but God has not. They are in a golden bowl near to His throne and near to His heart.
In the vision recorded in the Book of Revelation, the apostle John saw the prayers of all the saints, not just those of the end-time saints. An angel was given incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar before God’s throne (Rev. 8:3).
Our prayers avail so much that they remain effective, or “alive,” in God’s sight long after this life, and I assume that they “live” forever in God’s heart. Even the prayers from the distant past—from three hundred years ago or three thousand years ago—are still effective in God’s presence. I believe that the prayers we offer today will still be effective in the distant future—five hundred or five thousand years from now. What we accomplish in prayer affects events on the earth today and also those in the distant future. Our prayers now for cities and nations will continue to have an impact in the age to come.
The prayers for revival and justice offered by all the saints from the whole of history will be fully answered together at the end of the age. These prayers did not “die out” after they were partially answered by the revivals in history, which we’ll learn more about in a later chapter.
Our prayers have a significant, partial release in our generation and a greater, more complete release in the future—even in the age to come. As we gain greater understanding that our weak, simple prayers are not forgotten, we are motivated to persevere in prayer, even when we feel discouraged. The Word reminds us that the Lord will not forget one act of obedience done in love for Him: “God is not unjust to forget your work and labor of love which you have shown toward His name, in that you have ministered to the saints” (Heb. 6:10).
Growing in Prayer: A Real-Life Guide to Talking with God (pp. 30-31).