prayer coach

I have collected over 1,600 quotes on prayer from preachers, theologians, and people following hard after God. Here is a small sample of how some of them defined prayer. Which one is the most encouraging and helpful to you?

1. Prayer at its best is living with mind and heart utterly open to God. – Albert D. Belden
2. Prayer at its best is the expression of the total life, for all things else being equal, our prayers are only as powerful as our lives – A.W. Tozer
3. Prayer at its highest is a two-way conversation and for me the most important part is listening to God’s replies. – Frank Laubach
4. Prayer at its holiest moment is the entering into God [where] miracles seem tame … by comparison. – A.W. Tozer
5. Prayer is a sacred and appointed means to obtain all the blessings that we want, whether they relate to this life or the life to come. – Isaac Watts
6. Prayer is a silent surrendering of everything to God. – Soren Kierkegaard
7. Prayer is a work to which we must commit ourselves if we are to make sense of our lives in light of eternity. – Terry Glaspey
8. Prayer is about knowing God – not manipulating Him. – Tom Blackaby
9. Prayer is acceptable in any situation. – Kevin Shorter
10. Prayer is always in danger of degenerating into a glorified gold rush. How to get things from God occupies most [books]. – A.W. Tozer
11. Prayer is an art which only the Spirit can teach us. He is the giver of all prayer. – C.H. Spurgeon

• Prayer at its best is the expression of the total life, for all things else being equal, our prayers are only as powerful as our lives.
• God wants to be loved for Himself, but that is only part. He also wants us to know that when we have Him we have everything.
• The yearning to know what cannot be known, to comprehend the incomprehensible, to touch and taste the unapproachable, arises from the image of God in the nature of man. Deep calleth unto deep, and though polluted and landlocked by the mighty disaster theologians call the Fall, the soul senses its origin and longs to return to its source.
• [Intimacy w. God] can be such union as make miracles seem tame & [answers] appear short of wonderful in contrast.
• Every man is as holy as he really wants to be.
  
• Faith engages the person and promises of God and rests upon them with perfect assurance.
• Faith honors God by counting Him righteous and accepts His testimony against the very evidence of its own senses.
• Faith is at the root of all true worship, and without faith it is impossible to please God.
• For this reason the gravest question before the Church is always God Himself, and the most portentous fact about any man is not what he at a given time may say or do, but what he is his deep heart conceives God to be like.
• God is looking for those with whom He can do the impossible– what a pity that we plan only the things that we can do by ourselves.

image courtesy of IwoJima.com

Lately I have been spending time at work helping train others. Some of the things I need to train them on are things that I had to learn for myself. I was dwelling on this today and realized this is the life we are supposed to live. We are called into a lifestyle of taking new ground so that others may come up behind and carry the baton even further.

We all have those who have gone before us that have helped paved the way for us to be who we are and where we are today. Our country exists because of those who have laid the sacrifice before us. In the picture above, only two of the five lived a week after it was taken. They claimed new ground that others may exceed where they had been.

Growing up my older brother also did this for me in a way. I would see the things he was able to do and came to the conclusion I also would be able to do it. If he hit home runs, then I would be able to hit home runs. If he did well in school, then I could do well in school. That is what an older brother is for. He shows you what can be done and you go exceed it.

Our goal in walking with Jesus is not to make spiritual superheros, but find those who have exceeded in taking new ground then follow their example to take it to new heights. George Müller was known for being a man who God answered his prayers. Therefore let’s find out what he did and apply it. The Moravians set up 24/7 prayer virgils that ran for 100 years and spawned hundreds of missionaries around the globe – the first large scale Protestant missionary movement. Let’s look to them to see how to recreate that type of spiritual movement.

• God answers our prayers not because we are good, but because He is good.
• [In our fast-paced life] we have no time for contemplation. We have no time to answer God when He calls.
• To be effective the preacher’s message must be alive; it must alarm, arouse, challenge; it must be God’s present voice to a particular people.
• Without doubt, the mightiest thought the mind can entertain is the thought of God, and the weightest word in any language is its word for God.
• Distractions must be conquered or they will conquer us. So let us cultivate simplicity.
• I think that some of the greatest prayer is prayer where you don’t say one single word or ask for anything.
• What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.
  want constantly to be aware of Thy overshadowing Presence and to hear Thy speaking Voice.
• True prayer cannot be imitated nor can it be learned from someone else
• We can afford to follow Him to failure. Faith dares to fail. The resurrection and the judgment will demonstrate before all worlds who won and who lost. We can wait.
• Keep our hearts open to the inflowing Spirit and we will not become exhausted by the outflow.
• Salvation is from our side a choice, from the divine side it is a seizing upon, an apprehending, a conquest by the Most High God. Our accepting and willing are reactions rather than actions. The right of determination must always remain with God.
• Prayer at its holiest moment is the entering into God [where] miracles seem tame … by comparison.

The Pursuit of God by A.W. Tozer is probably my favorite book. If you want to experience the joys of Christian living, I highly encourage you to read this book.

I first read the Pursuit of God about 12 years ago. It immediately began to stir things in my devotion to God that few things ever had. It put words to things I had felt were true, but had not been hearing (or probably had not grasped before). Tozer’s goal of this book was to aid God’s hungry children so to find Him (via preface of book).

Here are some of the things I love about this book.

1. “The impulse to pursue God originates with God, but the outworking of that impulse is our following hard after Him.”

Tozer explains the paradox of the importance of pursuing God. Even though as Christians we are going to heaven and we experience God’s unchanging love, there are still privileges of continuing to dive into God. “Draw near to Me and I will draw near to you” (James 4:8). God is looking for people He can lavish His blessings on, and those people are the ones who are diving into their relationship with Him. He loves to be loved. He wants to be wanted.

2. “Self is the opaque veil that hides the face of God from us.”

Jesus’ death on the cross removed the veil that was hinder us from coming to God. Hebrews 4:16 entreaties us to go with confidence to the throne of God. There is nothing on God’s end keeping us from experiencing the presence of God. And yet, most of us do not experience God personally or experientially in life. Why is this? We keep ourselves from God. Either from selfish desires of mis-interpretations of who God is. Whatever it is, it needs to be put to death so that we can experience all that God has for us. He loves us immeasurably. Why would we not want to come?