“Many are willing to give themselves to the work of talking—but how few to the work of praying? If you will stand at the back of someone you see has a real message and pray, ‘Lord, give him utterance, let Thy Word run’—that is the WORK of prayer.” (Penn-Lewis, 1995. Page 16).
“Many Christians attend the prayer meeting to get right with God, or to get in communion with God; they ought to have lived in that all day, and should go to the meeting for definite work.” (Penn-Lewis, 1995. Page 17).
“An unclouded personal relationship to Christ is the very foundation of answered prayer.” (Penn-Lewis, 1995. Pages 22-23).
“A great secret in maintaining a life of personal victory is to ‘keep short accounts with God’—to quickly seize the weapon of prayer and pray, no matter how you feel. Whatever may be the circumstances, however you may think you are in ‘defeat’, PRAY!” (Penn-Lewis, 1995. Page 24).
“The fundamental personal conditions for a life of continual answer to prayer are therefore: (1) A cleansed heart—no love of sin; (2) ‘planted into His death’ as your permanent footing; (3) union with the Living Christ; (4) His Word abiding in you as your innermost food and life; (5) petition governed by the will rather than the feelings; (6) faith; (7) no self-motive; and (8) praying in spirit by the power of the Holy Spirit.” (Penn-Lewis, 1995. Page 34).
“It takes a deeper spiritual life to pray than to work, for the flesh can be very active for God and apparently accomplish great results. Lack of power in prayer drives us to human resources. To ‘only pray’ seems folly! This is simply because we have no power in prayer.” (Penn-Lewis, 1995. Page 37).
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“The powers of darkness must be met on their own ground. We may account ourselves ‘dead indeed unto sin’ and yet give the strong man much advantage by walking after the life of nature, i.e. our own thoughts, our own plans, our own energy. The natural cannot contend with the supernatural (see 2 Corinthians 10:4). It may appear to do much, and the enemy will go so far as to cause apparent ‘fruit’ if by such means he can keep us striving on a plane where the results are only exterior and bereft of spirit life.” (Penn-Lewis, 1995. Pages 68-69).
Derek Prince, Secrets of a Prayer Warrior
“When we learn to pray, then we are qualified to rule.” (Derek Prince, Secrets of a Prayer Warrior, 2009. Page 22).
“Just as the Holy Spirit leads us to understand God's will in Scripture, so He leads us in praying it back to God.... Additionally, if these ones shall symphonize—come together in perfect harmony—concerning anything that they shall ask, then it will be done for them.... He has tied Himself only to those who are led by the Spirit of God to come into His name.” (Derek Prince, 2009. Page 68).
Isaiah 60:18 “you will call your walls salvation, and your gates praise.” (NASB)“The instrument that most people mean when they talk about ‘prayer’ is petition, asking for physical and material needs to be met. But remember: Praying is not just thinking of anything we want and asking for it. Praying is discovering God revealed purpose in Scripture, and then praying for the outworking of that purpose.
Psalm 100:4 “Enter His gates with thanksgiving And His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him, bless His name.” (NASB)
“Look again at 1 John 5:14-15: ‘Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we ask of Him.’ ” (Derek Prince, 2009. Page 74).
“It is not just asking that is important, but asking and receiving. I have seen this many times. God touches someone with a healing touch, but the person does not receive it. One way not to receive an answer to a petitiion is to go on praying for it. Some people pray themselves into faith and then pray themselves out of faith.” (Derek Prince, 2009. Pages 74-75).
Mark 11:24 “Therefore I say to you, all things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them…” (NASB)“Notice this, though: Receiving is not the same as having. Receiving is settling it; having is the experience that follows. The actual experience of having what we have prayed for may have to wait, but by faith we receive what we pray for when we pray.” (Derek Prince, 2009. Page 75).
Prince goes on to describe the essential ingredient between receiving and actual experience: “Keep the plug in.… How do you do that? Basically, by thanking God. If you have made a petition regarding physical healing, for instance, you say, ‘Thank You, Lord. Your supernatural power is at work in my body.’ And as you respond that way, the healing is completed.” (Derek Prince, 2009. Page 76. Get the book, there are examples following.)
“Intercession is one of the highest arts of Christian life, one of the most difficult instruments to play. It requires a lot of practice, a lot of skill, a lot of maturity. To intercede means literally ‘to come in between.’ The intercessor is one who comes in between God and those for whom he is praying.” (Derek Prince, 2009. Page 79).
“the most influential people on earth today are those who know how to get their prayers answered.” (Derek Prince, 2009. Page 105).
“Something happens in our spirit when we let that attitude of reverence express itself in our prayers.” (Derek Prince, 2009. Page 109).
“Through the new birth and through the grace of God we can be released from that prison of self-centeredness and into a relationship with Him in which what God wants is more important than what we want.” (Derek Prince, 2009. Page 110).
“Prayer is not a way for us to get God to do what we want. A lot of Christians think it is. It may work out that way, but that is not its purpose. Prayer is a way for us to become instruments for God to do what He wants. When we become aligned with God's purpose, we are going to pray prayers that are irresistible. There will be no power, human or satanic, that will be able to resist the outworking of our prayer.” (Derek Prince, 2009. Page 115).
“There are only two alternatives about prayer. Either God answers prayer or He does not. If He does not answer prayer it is foolish to pray, and if He does answer prayer it is foolish not to pray.” (Derek Prince, 2009. Page 119).
“When you find your place in the Body, then your allotted proportion of faith that God has given you will make you successful in that place.” (Derek Prince, 2009. Page 125).
Daniel 10:12-13 “Then he said to me, ‘Do not be afraid, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart on understanding this and on humbling yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to your words.But the prince of the kingdom of Persia was withstanding me for twenty-one days; then behold, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I had been left there with the kings of Persia.’...” (NASB)“Notice also that the initiative is with earth, not heaven. Daniel started the whole thing moving. And I venture to say, in certain respects this remains true today. We are not waiting for God; God is waiting for us. When we move, heaven will move. Then will come the conflict, and our prayers on earth will settle it. We who are believers and know how to pray are much more important than most of us have the faintest idea.” (Derek Prince, 2009. Page 132).
Prince makes another important statement concerning the quote above from the book of Daniel: “This shows that earth's empires have their counterpart in Satan's empire. In other words, Satan seeks to control the empires of earth through its rulers in order to make its leaders and governments instruments of his will. We must pray for our governments in order to frustrate Satan and to bring our governments under heaven's control.
“That is why Paul said first of all—before you pray for the sick, the missionaries, the evangelist, even your family—to pray for the government. As we have seen, anyone who criticizes the government is telling the world that he has failed in his prayers. He has not done his job.” (Derek Prince, 2009. Page 134).
Revelations 12:11 “And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb, and because of the word of their testimony. And they did not love their soul until death. ” (MKJV)“The key words are testimony, Word and blood. You testify personally to what the Word, that is Scripture, says that the blood of Christ does for you. To make it effective you must make it personal. To whom are you testifying? To Satan. This is not a believer's testimony meeting! This is where you and I come face-to-face with the enemy of our souls. We speak directly to him in the name and the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ, and we tell him what the Word of God says that the blood of Jesus does for us.” (Derek Prince, 2009. Page 150).
“When Scripture speaks about a glorious Church, it means a Church that is filled with God's glory, a Church that has within it the manifest, visible, tangible, personal presence of Almighty God. It is not a Church that is living on naked faith without any manifestation, but a Church that, through faith, has entered into a relationship with God where His visible, personal, tangible presence is with His people. The Bible says that is the kind of Church for which Jesus is coming. It is the Church for which we pray.” (Derek Prince, 2009. Page 183).
Charles G. Finney, How to Experience Revival
“To pray effectively you must pray with submission to the will of God. Do not confuse submission with indifference. No two things are more unlike. I once knew an individual who came to a revival. He was cold and did not enter into the spirit of prayer. When he heard the brethren pray as if they could not be denied, he was shocked at their boldness. He insisted on the importance of praying with submission. Yet, it was plain that he confused submission with indifference.
“If the will of God is not known, submission without prayer is tempting God. For all you know your prayer may be the thing on which an event turns. In the case of an impenitent friend, your prayers may be the key to his being saved.
“Christians often amaze themselves when they look back on their ardent, bold prayers spoken in a moment of intense emotion. Yet, these prayers have prevailed and obtained the blessing. And many of these people are among the holiest people I know in the world.
“The temptation to have selfish motives is so strong that there is reason to fear a great many parental prayers never rise above the yearnings of parental tenderness. That is why so many prayers are not answered and why so many pious, praying parents have ungodly children. Prayer for the unsaved must be based on more than sympathy. Missionaries and others often make the mistake of praying only about those going to hell, forgetting prayer about how the unsaved also dishonor God.” (Charles Finney. How to Experience Revival. Pages 44-45.)
Discussing the conduct of the revival in Evans Mills Finney states: “The means used where simply preaching, prayer, and conference meetings, much private prayer, much personal conversation, and meetings for the instruction of earnest inquirers. These, and no other means were used for the promotion of that work.” (The Autobiography of Charles G. Finney. Pages 68-69.)
“I have said more than once that the spirit of prayer that prevailed in those revivals was a very marked feature of them. It was common for young converts to be greatly exercised in prayer. In some instances they were so burdened that they were constrained to pray whole nights, until their bodily strength was quite exhausted for the conversion of souls around them. There was a great pressure of the Holy Spirit upon the minds of Christians and they seemed to bear about with them the burden of immortal souls.
“Not only were prayer meetings greatly multiplied and fully attended, not only was there great reverence in those meetings, but there was a mighty spirit of secret prayer.” (The Autobiography of Charles G. Finney. Page 104.)
“In offering the Lord's Prayer, ‘Thy kingdom come,’ it is plain that sincerity is a condition of prevailing with God. But sincerity in offering this petition implies the thorough consecration of all that we have and all that we are to the building up of Christ's kingdom. To utter this petition in any other state of mind involves hypocrisy and is an abomination.” (The Believer's Secret of Spiritual Power. Page 127.)
- “We must evaluate our prayer lives to see if we are
meeting these conditions of prevailing prayer:
- “The
inspiration of the Holy Spirit. All truly
prevailing prayer is inspired by the Holy Spirit. ‘For we know not
what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit itself maketh
intercession for us with the groanings which cannot be uttered. And
He that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit,
because He maketh intercession for the saints according to the will
of God’ (Romans 8:26, 27). This is the true spirit of prayer. This
is being led by the Spirit in prayer. It is the only really
prevailing prayer. Unless believers are taught how to pray by the
intercession of the Spirit in them, they cannot prevail with God.
- “Fervency.
A prayer, to be prevailing, must be fervent. ‘Confess your faults
one to another, and pray on for another, that ye may be healed. The
effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much’ (James
5:16).
- “ Perseverance
or persistence in prayer. See the cases of Jacob,
of Daniel, of Elijah, of the Syrophoenician woman, of the unjust
judge, and the teaching of the Bible generally.
- “Travail
of soul. ‘As soon as Zion travailed, she brought
forth her children.’ ‘My little children,’ said Paul, ‘of
whom I travail in birth again, till Christ be formed in you.’ This
implies that he had travailed in birth for them before they were
converted. Indeed, travail of soul in prayer is the only real
revival prayer. If anyone does not know what this is, he does not
understand the spirit of prayer. He is not in a revival state. Until
he understands this agonizing prayer, he does not know the real
secret of revival power.
- “ Specific
prevailing prayer. It is offered for a definite
object. We cannot prevail for everything at once. In all the cases
recorded in the Bible in which prayer was answered, it is noteworthy
that the petitioner prayed for a definite object.
- “Meaning
what we say. We make no false pretenses; in short,
that we are entirely childlike and sincere, speaking out of the
heart, nothing more nor less than what we mean, feel and believe.
- “Believing
the good faith of God to keep all His promises.
- “Guarding
against everything that can quench or grieve the Spirit of God in
our hearts. We must watch for the answer in a
state of mind that will diligently use all necessary means, at any
expense, and add entreaty to entreaty.”
(The Believer's Secret of Spiritual Power. Pages 138-139.)
