Prayer is the act of forging a connection between two specific points: our human needs and the resources of God offered to us in Christ. You can start at either point, and reach to the other in prayer. True Christians have discovered that God, in Christ, offers them grace, mercy, …
“We shall never see much change for the better in our churches in general till the prayer meeting occupies a higher place in the esteem of Christians.” So wrote Charles Spurgeon in his famous address, “Only a Prayer Meeting.”[Only a Prayer-meeting (Ross-shire: Christian Focus, 2000), 9.] By “the prayer meeting” …
The Puritans held that all preparation is ultimately ineffectual apart from the Holy Spirit’s work. Stephen Charnock writes, “To render our worship spiritual, we should, before every engagement in it, implore the actual presence of the Spirit, without which we are not able to send forth one spiritual breath or …
Theology is conceived by hearing God’s Word, and it comes to birth by prayer. “Show me thy ways, O Lord; teach me thy paths” (Ps. 25:4). Our systematic theology was certainly born of prayer, beginning when God taught us by grace to “call upon the name of the Lord” (Rom. …
