Post by Josh on Jan 29, 2007 15:44:31 GMT -8
I'm going to keep a log of my favorite quotes on prayer here, especially as I'm reading through the book Prayer by Philip Yancey:
"The prayer preceding all prayers is 'May it be the real I who speaks. May it be the real Thou that I speak to'" CS Lewis
"The well-known pastor Haddon Robinson begins almost every sermon with the same brief confession: 'God, if these people knew about me what you know about me, they wouldn't listen to a word I said'" Philip Yancey
"It occurred to me one day that though I often worry about whether or not I sense the presence of God, I give little thought to whether God senses the prescence of me." Philip Yancey
"Most of my struggles in the Christian life circle around the same two themes: why God doesn't act the way we want God to, and why I don't act the way God wants me to. Prayer is the precise point where those themes converge." Philip Yancey
"Prayer is request. The essence of request, as distinct from compulsion, is that it may or may not be granted. And if an infinitely wise Being listens to the requests of finite and foolish creatures, of course He will sometimes grant and sometimes refuse them"
"It seems to me we must conclude that such promises (as in Mark 11:24) about prayer with faith refer to a degree or kind of faith which most believers never experience. A far inferior degree is, I hope acceptable to God. Even the kind that says "Help thou my unbelief" may make way for a miracle. Again, the absence of such faith as insures the granting of the prayer is not even necessarily a sin; for Our Lord had no such assurance when He prayed in Gethsemene"
"There are no doubt, passages in the New Testament which may seem at first sight to promise an invariable granting of our prayers. But that cannot be what they really mean. For in the very heart of the story we meet a glaring instance to the contrary. In Gethsemene the holiest of all petitioners prayed ... that a certain cup might pass from him. It did not. After that the idea that prayer is recommended to us as a sort of infallible gimmick may be dismissed".
Have any favorite quotes about prayer? Post them as a reply.
"The prayer preceding all prayers is 'May it be the real I who speaks. May it be the real Thou that I speak to'" CS Lewis
"The well-known pastor Haddon Robinson begins almost every sermon with the same brief confession: 'God, if these people knew about me what you know about me, they wouldn't listen to a word I said'" Philip Yancey
"It occurred to me one day that though I often worry about whether or not I sense the presence of God, I give little thought to whether God senses the prescence of me." Philip Yancey
"Most of my struggles in the Christian life circle around the same two themes: why God doesn't act the way we want God to, and why I don't act the way God wants me to. Prayer is the precise point where those themes converge." Philip Yancey
"Prayer is request. The essence of request, as distinct from compulsion, is that it may or may not be granted. And if an infinitely wise Being listens to the requests of finite and foolish creatures, of course He will sometimes grant and sometimes refuse them"
"It seems to me we must conclude that such promises (as in Mark 11:24) about prayer with faith refer to a degree or kind of faith which most believers never experience. A far inferior degree is, I hope acceptable to God. Even the kind that says "Help thou my unbelief" may make way for a miracle. Again, the absence of such faith as insures the granting of the prayer is not even necessarily a sin; for Our Lord had no such assurance when He prayed in Gethsemene"
"There are no doubt, passages in the New Testament which may seem at first sight to promise an invariable granting of our prayers. But that cannot be what they really mean. For in the very heart of the story we meet a glaring instance to the contrary. In Gethsemene the holiest of all petitioners prayed ... that a certain cup might pass from him. It did not. After that the idea that prayer is recommended to us as a sort of infallible gimmick may be dismissed".
Have any favorite quotes about prayer? Post them as a reply.