Prayer is always essential, but thought is essential, too, because prayer can be just an escape mechanism, almost at times a cry in the dark by people who are desperate and defeated. Prayer must be intelligent, and it is only to those who realize that their bodies are the temples of the Holy Ghost that the answer will be given and the power will come.Spiritual Depression (173)
Where passion for God is weak, zeal for missions will be weak. Churches that are not centred on the exaltation of the majesty and beauty of God will scarcely kindle a fervent desire to declare his glory among the nations (Ps 96:3)Let the Nations Be Glad (36)
The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and what became of him after his resurrection, shows the greatness of God's power toward us now in this life.
Your belief is a miracle! You didn't choose it. Of course if you have a theology that says 'I did it' then you have no testimony to the power of God in your life!June 8 2011 Sermon (Minute 31)
There is a world of difference between praying and laboring for a renewed mind that discerns how to apply God's Word, on the one hand, and the habit of asking God to give you new revelation of what to do, on the other hand. Divination does not require transformation. God's aim is a new mind, a new way of thinking and judging, not just new information. Sermon Notes (August 22, 2004)
We don't take the words seriously when we use God as a throwaway word, or Jesus Christ as a word for when I just hit my finger or something terrible just happened, or damn as a swear word, or hell as a throwaway swear word. The problem with all those words is that they take things that are unbelievably important and serious, and they turn them into moments of smallness.
If you could be brought once to love secret prayer, and to converse feelingly with God in his word, your heaven will begin on earth; you will enjoy more pleasure than in all manner of riches.
At the heart of all sin is a lie. The lie says to all of us in our sin, "The act you are now doing, the desire or attitude you are now feeling is not very bad because there are much worse things, not very bad because everyone else experiences the same things, not very bad because you can't help it, not very bad because there is no God, or, if that won't work, God knows you are but frail and weak and he will tolerate and pity your sin." There are a thousand distortions of the truth which sin brings with it into the human heart, so that Jeremiah cries out, "The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately corrupt; who can understand it?" (17:9).
Brothers, for the sake of the truth, and for the good of your people, and for the glory of God in the world, don't confuse timid uncertainty with truthful humility. Brothers, We are Not Professionals (166)
God ordains our prayers as means of receiving what he plans to give, all to enrich our relationship to him. As the perfect Father of his children, he reserves the right to answer the requests we should have made rather than those we actually made when we have asked for the wrong thing; but he will take action one way or another in every situation of need that we bring before him. Systematic Theology A Lecture