How to Pray Quotes

“The one who expects God to do as he asks Him must on his part do whatever God bids him.”
― R.A. Torrey, How to Pray

“The great cry of our day is work, new organizations, new methods, and new machinery. The great need of our day is prayer.”
― R.A. Torrey, How to Pray

“God is deeply grieved by the thanklessness and ingratitude of which so many of us are guilty. When Jesus healed the ten lepers and only one came back to give Him thanks, in wonderment and pain He exclaimed, "Were not the ten cleansed? but where are the nine?" (Luke 17:17, R.V.)
How often must He look down upon us in sadness at our forgetfulness of His repeated blessings, and His frequent answer to our prayers.”
― R.A. Torrey, How To Pray

“Many a church is praying for a revival that does not really desire a revival. They think they do, for to their minds a revival means an increase of membership, an increase of income, an increase of reputation among the churches, but if they knew what a real revival meant, what a searching of hearts on the part of professed Christians would be involved, what a radical transformation of individual, domestic and social life would be brought about, and many other things that would come to pass if the Spirit of God was poured out in reality and power; if all this were known, the real cry of the church would be: “O God, keep us from having a revival.” Many”
― R.A. Torrey, How to Pray

“For example, many a woman is praying for the conversion of her husband. That certainly is a most proper thing to ask; but many a woman's motive in asking for the conversion of her husband is entirely improper, it is selfish. She desires that her husband may be converted because it would be so much more pleasant for her to have a husband who sympathized with her; or it is so painful to think that her husband might die and be lost forever. For some such selfish reason as this she desires to have her husband converted. The prayer is purely selfish. Why should a woman desire the conversion of her husband? First of all and above all, that God may be glorified; because she cannot bear the thought that God the Father should be dishonored by her husband trampling underfoot the Son of God.”
― R.A. Torrey, How To Pray

“First Thessalonians 5:17 says, Pray without ceasing, and Ephesians 6:18 says to pray always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit.”
― Reuben A. Torrey, How to Pray: What the Bible Tells Us About Genuine, Effective Prayer

“When our prayers fail, it is because they are indeed our prayers. We have conceived the desire and framed the petition ourselves instead of looking to Christ to pray through us. To say that we should be abiding in Christ in all our prayers and looking to Christ to pray through Him rather than praying ourselves, is simply another way of saying that we should pray “in the Spirit.” When we truly abide in Christ, our thoughts are not our own thoughts, but His; our joys are not our own joys, but His; our fruit is not our own fruit, but His – just as the buds, leaves, blossoms, and fruit of the branch that abides in the vine are not the buds, leaves, blossoms, and fruit of the branch, but of the vine itself, whose life is flowing into the branch and manifests itself in these buds, leaves, blossoms, and fruit.”
― Reuben A. Torrey, How to Pray: What the Bible Tells Us About Genuine, Effective Prayer

“We all know people whose joy is filled full; indeed, it is just running over, shining from their eyes, bubbling out of their very lips, and running off their fingertips when they shake hands with you. Coming in contact with them is like coming in contact with an electrical machine charged with gladness.”
― Reuben A. Torrey, How to Pray: What the Bible Tells Us About Genuine, Effective Prayer

“As I meet God in prayer and gaze into His face, I am changed into His own image from glory to glory. Therefore we all, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord with uncovered face, are transformed from glory to glory into the same likeness, even as by the Spirit of the Lord (2 Corinthians 3:18). Each day that I live a life of true prayer, I become a little more like my glorious Lord.”
― Reuben A. Torrey, How to Pray: What the Bible Tells Us About Genuine, Effective Prayer

“If in order to be an optimist one must shut his eyes and call black white, error truth, sin righteousness, and death life, then I don’t want to be called an optimist. I am an optimist, though.”
― Reuben A. Torrey, How to Pray: What the Bible Tells Us About Genuine, Effective Prayer

“in order to be an optimist one must shut his eyes and call black white, error truth, sin righteousness, and death life, then I don’t want to be called an optimist.”
― Reuben A. Torrey, How to Pray: What the Bible Tells Us About Genuine, Effective Prayer

“It is not necessary that the whole church prays to begin with. Great revivals always begin first in the hearts of a few men and women whom God arouses by His Spirit to believe in Him as a living God, as a God who answers prayer, and upon whose heart He lays a burden from which no rest can be found except in persistent crying unto God. May God use this book to inspire many others to pray that the greatly needed revival may come, and that it would come quickly. May God stir up your own heart to be one of those burdened to pray for true revival until God answers your prayer.”
― Reuben A. Torrey, How to Pray: What the Bible Tells Us About Genuine, Effective Prayer

“It is not necessary that the whole church prays to begin with. Great revivals always begin first in the hearts of a few men and women whom God arouses by His Spirit to believe in Him as a living God, as a God who answers prayer, and upon whose heart He lays a burden from which no rest can be found except in persistent crying unto God.”
― Reuben A. Torrey, How to Pray: What the Bible Tells Us About Genuine, Effective Prayer

“There is not much new in the higher criticism. Our future ministers are often educated under unbelieving professors, and being impressionable young men when they enter the college or seminary, they naturally come out as infidels in many cases, and then go forth and poison the church.”
― Reuben A. Torrey, How to Pray: What the Bible Tells Us About Genuine, Effective Prayer

“It is the same today. Many people are crying out to God in vain, simply because of sin in their lives. It may be some sin in the past that has been unconfessed and unjudged, or it may be some sin in the present that is cherished, and very likely not even looked upon as sin; but the sin is there, hidden away somewhere in the heart or in the life, and God will not hear.”
― Reuben A. Torrey, How to Pray: What the Bible Tells Us About Genuine, Effective Prayer

“We live in a day characterized by the multiplication of man’s methods, while we reject and remain ignorant of God’s power. The great cry of our day is work, work, work – new organizations, new methods, new systems. The great need of our day is prayer.”
― Reuben A. Torrey, How to Pray: What the Bible Tells Us About Genuine, Effective Prayer

“When we first come into God’s presence, we should be silent before Him.”
― Reuben A. Torrey, How to Pray: What the Bible Tells Us About Genuine, Effective Prayer

“The world tends to draw us away from God by its pleasures and cares.”
― Reuben A. Torrey, How to Pray: What the Bible Tells Us About Genuine, Effective Prayer

“When we stop to weigh the meaning of these words, then note the connection in which they are found, the intelligent child of God is driven to say, "I must pray, pray, pray. I must put all my energy and all my heart into prayer. Whatever else I do, I must pray.”
― R.A. Torrey, How to Pray: Optimized with Hyper-Linked Chapters