Sunday Leftovers (11/15/09)

Do we know the strength and power of God in our lives? Do we know the strength and power of God in our praying? Much of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians is concerned with the matter of strength for living for the Ephesians (e.g., 1:19-20; 3:16, 20; 6:10ff). Among the truths exposed by Paul are: […]

Today’s Quote – Prayer (Ryle)

J. C. Ryle: “A Call to Prayer:” Faith is to the soul what life is to the body. Prayer is to faith what breath is to the body. How a person can live and not breathe is past my comprehension, and how a person can believe and not pray is past my comprehension too. (HT: […]

Today’s Quote – Prayer (Mueller)

George Mueller: For more than half a century, I have never known one day when I had not more business than I could get through. For 40 years, I have had annually about 30,000 letters, and most of these have passed through my own hands. I have nine assistants always at work corresponding in German, […]

Sunday Leftovers (11/8/09)

When we do not pray, there are a multiplicity of reasons that we offer for our waywardness: busy-ness weariness apathy and distractions lack of knowledge about what (or how) to pray sin May I suggest also that one primary reason we do not pray is because we either do not know or do not believe […]

Sunday Leftovers (7/5/09)

When I was a child, growing up in my parent’s home, it was not uncommon for Dad to ask me to pray for something in the evening, and often it might be for missionaries. To my recollection, my prayers would invariably be something like this —”Dear God, please bless all the missionaries (in the whole […]

Today’s Quote – Prayer (Hiebert)

D. Edmond Hiebert, Working with God through Prayer: The Holy Spirit is seeking to make the desperate world conditions an insistent call on our hearts for prayer. Prayer is the primary need. In the efforts of the churches today to respond to these vast needs, the most urgent need is not money, important as it […]

Sunday Leftovers (3/1/09)

In his book Victorious Christians You Should Know, Warren Wiersbe tells of the letter Andrew Bonar wrote to his brother during the Kilsyth Revival of 1839-40. Bonar lamented that there had not yet been significant change among the people, “…and I believe I am to blame. I work more than I pray.” Later he would […]

Praying for your pastors

Every pastor is asked on a somewhat regular basis, “how can I pray for you?” Keith and I are no exception. Recently, pastor Ligon Duncan put together a list of seventeen things to pray for your pastor(s). Pray — That [your pastor] would know and love the living God, would have a saving interest in […]

Today’s Quote – Prosperity (Calvin)

John Calvin, Commentary on Zechariah, Malachi: It is therefore necessary that we should be subject, from first to last, to the scourges of God, in order that we may from the heart call on him; for our hearts are enfeebled by prosperity, so that we cannot make the effort to pray. (HT: John Piper)

Having trouble praying?

At the beginning of a new year, we are wont to make resolutions. This will change. This time. It really will. Yet statistics I came across a few years ago have said that within one month, 45% of all people have not kept their resolutions. And only 19% keep their resolutions for as long as […]

On the power of prayer

Speaking of prayer… In studying for my sermon for last Sunday, I came across these three statements about the value, importance, and power of prayer: Thomas Lyle: “I had rather stand against the canons of the wicked than against the prayers of the righteous.” Thomas Watson: “The angel fetched Peter out of prison, but it […]

How to love your enemy

Do you ever wonder how to love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you (Mt. 5:44)? John Piper, contemplating that command of Christ, relates it to the familiar pattern for prayer that follows in Mt. 6 — It would be unwarranted to think that the loving prayer for our enemy should ask for […]

Books and transformation

In a recent post, Bob Kauflin wrote, “I once heard someone say that books don’t change people — sentences do. If I glean two or three sentences from a book that affect the way I think and the way I live, that’s time well invested. So I read.” I find it virtually impossible to read […]

Trouble Arising Early to Pray?

Do you have trouble arising early in the morning to pray? This word of encouragement and exhortation from John Calvin is a good encouragement to continuance in the discipline of prayer: “Although we ought always to raise our minds upwards towards God, and pray without ceasing, yet such is our weakness, which requires to be […]

A prayer for a lack of prayer

This is from Adolphe Monod’s book, Living in the Hope of Glory. It is a fitting preparation for our worship for Sunday, and for our preparation of our service today (and any day): My God, forgive the way in which your church, which alone in the world knows enough to pray, does pray. Forgive the […]