The following quotes were taken from our recent message on the importance of corporate prayer in the church:

“Much praying is not done simply because we do not plan to pray!” Don Carson

Prayer Defined:

“Prayer is as natural and instinctive to the Christian as breathing” Martin Luther.

“Prayer is the most tangible expression of our trust in God” Jerry Bridges.

“People who know their God are, before anything else, people who pray” J.I. Packer

“Prayer is the spontaneous response of the believing heart to God” John Macarthur.

“Prayer is the highest activity of the human soul, and therefore it is at the same time the ultimate test of a man’s true spiritual condition” Martin Lloyd-Jones.

“Prayer is our highest privilege, our gravest responsibility, and the greatest power God has put into our hands... the noblest, the sublimest, the most stupendous act that any creature of God can perform”. Albert Earnest Richardson

“Prayer is the vital breath of the Christian; not the thing that makes him alive, but the evidence that he is alive.” Oswald Chambers

“We must learn to measure ourselves, not by our knowledge about God, not by our gifts and responsibilities in the church, but by how we pray and what goes on in our hearts. Many of us, I suspect, have no idea how impoverished we are at this level. Let us ask the Lord to show us.” J.I. Packer

Key quote:

“Corporate prayer hinges on our sense of its importance. Praying together is a glorious expression of our divine and human relationships, a precious privilege purchased for us by the blood of Christ, and an essential activity of the common Spirit in us. Most of us would acknowledge that it is a good idea. Nevertheless, we often fail to make it a priority of our lives simply because we aren’t convinced it is necessary. But far from being an optional activity, praying together is, as Martyn Lloyd-Jones said, “the very essence and life of the Church.” Megan Hill (from her book 'Praying Together')

God's Sovereignty and Human Prayer:

“When God is about to bestow some great blessing on His church, it is often His manner, in the first place, so to order things in His providence as to show His church their great need of it, and to bring them into distress for want of it, and so put them upon crying earnestly to Him for it”. Jonathan Edwards

“Never presume that God will give you apart from prayer what he has ordained to grant you only by means of prayer”. Sam Storms

"We can be sure our prayers are answered precisely in the way we would want them to be answered, if we knew everything that God knows”. Tim Keller

“God either answers our prayer, or the prayer we ought to have prayed according to his will”. Sinclair Ferguson

“God will either give you what you ask, or something far better”. Robert Murray M’Cheyne

“Waiting for an answer to prayer is often part of the answer” John Blanchard

The mutual encouragement of prayer:

“By expressing the joys of our faith to God, we may often be made a means, through the power of the Holy Spirit, to raise the faith and joy of others.” Isaac Watts