"Though in its beginnings prayer is so simple that the feeblest child can pray, yet it is at the same time the highest and holiest work to which man can rise.  It is fellowship with the Unseen and Most Holy One.  The powers of the eternal world have been placed at its disposal."


-Andrew Murray, With Christ in the School of Prayer, p. 14

With Christ in the School of Prayer

For a while I've wanted to do more reading on prayer, and the book With Christ in the School of Prayer by Andrew Murray has been sitting on my shelf, just waiting to be read.  With lots of encouragement from Tempestt at church the past 2 weeks, I was motivated to finish the other books I was working on and get into this one.  I've read the preface about 3 times.  Here are some quotes:

"Of all the promises connected with the command 'Abide in me,' there is none higher, and none that sooner brings the confession, 'Not that I have already attained, or am already made perfect,' than this: 'If ye abide in me, ask whatever ye will, and it shall be done unto you.'  Power with God is the highest attainment of the life of full abiding."

"We have become so accustomed to limit the wonderful love and the large promises of our God, that we cannot read the simplest and clearest statements of our Lord without the qualifying clauses by which we guard and expound them.  If there is one thing I think the Church needs to learn, it is that God means prayer to have and answer, and that it hath not entered into the heart of man to conceive what God will do for  His child who gives himself to believe that his prayer will be heard."

"I feel sure that as long as we look on prayer chiefly as the means of maintaining our own Christian life, we shall not know fully what it is meant to be.  But when we learn to regard it as the highest part of the work entrusted to us, the root and strength of all other work, we shall see that there is nothing that we so need to study and practice as the art of praying aright."