If you cannot come with a broken heart, come for a broken heart. If you cannot come with faith, come for faith. If you cannot come repenting, come and ask the Lord to give you repentance. Come empty-handed, bankrupt, ruined, condemned, and you will find rest. (Spurgeon)
The book of Acts is filled with prayer meetings; every forward thrust the first church made was immersed in prayer. Take another look at the church at Pentecost. They prayed ten days and preached ten minutes and three thousand people were saved. Today we pray ten minutes and preach ten days and are ecstatic if anyone was saved. (Ronald Dunn)
Jesus never taught His disciples how to preach, only how to pray…. To know how to speak to God is more than knowing how to speak to man. (Andrew Murray)
Our prayers can go where we cannot (although they are not a substitute for our going when we can). There are no borders, no prison walls, no doors that are closed when we pray. The political, economic, military, and spiritual leaders of the world may not know our names, but we can have more influence on their plans than all of their closest advisors put together. While many things may seem impossible from a human standpoint, in the realm of prayer there are no impossibilities.
Still we hesitate. A Christian man once told me, "It's not our place to tell God what we want Him to do with His world." —which is how he described intercessory prayer. "Why not?" I challenged him. God invites us—even commands us—to do it. "You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it." (John 14:14). Shall we decline His invitation out of false humility? God wants us to be active, not passive. He wants us to resist—and ultimately defeat—the principalities and powers that hold the world hostage. Further, He gives us weapons more powerful than theirs to do this. Jesus declares, "Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven." (Matthew 16:19). God has given us access to the unlimited power of Jesus Christ—power far greater than that of any so-called "superpower" on earth. (Brother Andrew)
Most churches think their members are gathered into one simply to take care of and build up each other. They know not that God rules the world by the prayers of His saints; that prayer is the power by which Satan is conquered; that by prayer the Church on earth has disposal of the powers of the heavenly world. (Andrew Murray)
No language is quite so trite, so empty, as devotional talk without active meaning, religious profession without corresponding performance. "Why do you call me 'Lord, Lord' and not do what I tell you?" Jesus had asked earlier, adding, "Not every one who says to me 'Lord, Lord' shall enter the kingdom of heaven but he who doeth ..." (Luke 6:46) (Brother Andrew)
God uses persecution for the good of the church. However, persecution is not the work of a loving God—it is the work of our sworn enemy.
Whenever we see evil, we can ask God to change that situation. We have every right to do so. But expect Satan to counter our efforts with every trick in his arsenal. He is an enemy of prayer, especially when we are asking God to free people from darkness and sin.
We all know the boundaries of evil are expanding every day, and fatalistic apathy enables those boundaries to grow because it offers no resistance. Christians must oppose evil.
We are born for this battle! Every Christian is a soldier, a member of God's resistance," engaged
in spiritual warfare. The moment we lose sight of this, we become aimless in our actions and fuzzy in our focus. We forget why we were born and what we are trained and equipped to do on the battlefield, and we die without ever knowing why we lived. Most important, we never complete the mission we were sent to accomplish. (Brother Andrew)
It's a fact that Christians live in enemy territory. Satan in the wilderness offered to give Jesus all the kingdoms of the world with their glory. Jesus didn't dispute that earth is under foreign occupation. The world is under Satan's control and his plan is to make sure everyone worships him. Our job is to return the world to its rightful owner-God. We are entrusted with the responsibility to advance God's Kingdom.
The devil will do everything possible to thwart that goal. (Brother Andrew)
Never forget this fact: we share the love of God with people who are hostages of Satan in a world under his control. Prayer is the means by which we release the hostages.(Brother Andrew)
The battle for lost souls is won by prayer and intercession. Prayer is the warfare. Evangelism is not the attempt to win the battle— it is the mopping up operation. The physical possessions of the church, the buildings, organization and programs are the trucks we drive onto the field of battle to load up the spoils of the victory won by intercession. (Ronald Dunn)
The story of every great Christian achievement is the history of answered prayer. --Prayer, the Real Battle, Brother Andrew and Al Janssen
Biblical prayer is impertinent, persistent, shameless, indecorous. It is more like haggling in an outdoor bazaar than the polite monologues of the church. (Walter Wink)
The refusal to accept the harshness of God's ways in the name of his love was an authentic form of prayer. Indeed, the ancient prophets of Israel were not in the habit of consenting to God's harsh judgment and did not simply nod, saying, "Thy will be done." They often challenged him, as if to say, "Thy will be changed." (Abraham Joshua Heschel)
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