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Prevailing prayer is that which secures an answer. Saying prayers is not offering prevailing prayer. The prevalence of prayer does not depend so much on quantity as on quality.
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Charles Grandison Finney
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The prayer that prevails is not the work of lips and fingertips. It is the cry of a broken heart and the travail of a stricken soul.
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Samuel Chadwick
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Never say, "O Lord, I am a miserable sinner." Who will help you? You are the help of the universe. What in this universe can help you? What can prevail over you? You are the God of the universe; where can you seek for help? Never help came from anywhere but from yourself. In your ignorance, every prayer that you made and that was answered, you thought was answered by some Being, but you answered the prayer yourself unknowingly. The help came from yourself, and you fondly imagined that someone was sending help to you. There is no help for you outside of yourself; you are the creator of the universe. Like the silkworm, you have built a cocoon around yourself. Who will save you? Burst your own cocoon and come out as a beautiful butterfly, as the free soul. Then alone you will see Truth.
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Vivekananda (The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Volume 3)
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There is no power like that of prevailing prayer - of Abraham pleading for Sodom, Jacob wrestling in the stillness of the night, Moses standing in the breach, Hannah intoxicated with sorrow, David heartbroken with remorse and grief, Jesus in sweat and blood. Add to this list from the records of the church your personal observation and experience, and always there is cost of passion unto blood. Such prayer prevails. It turns ordinary mortals into men of power. It brings power. It brings fire. It brings rain. It brings life. It brings God.
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Samuel Chadwick
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The battle for our lives, and the lives and souls of our children, our husbands, our friends, our families, our neighbors, and our nation is waged on our knees. When we don't pray, it's like sitting on the sidelines watching those we love and care about scrambling through a war zone, getting shot at from every angle. When we do pray, however, we're in the battle alongside them, approaching God's power on their behalf. If we also declare the Wordog God in our prayers, then we wield a powerful weapon against which no enemy can prevail.
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Stormie Omartian (The Power of a Praying® Woman Bible: Prayer and Study Helps by Stormie Omartian)
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Sometimes, when your child talks, your friends cannot understand what he says; but the mother understands very well. So if our prayer comes right from the heart, God understands our language.
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Dwight L. Moody (Prevailing Prayer (Moody Classics))
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If our spiritually dead ones are to be raised, we must first get power with God. The reason we so often fail in moving our fellowmen is that we try to win them without first getting power with God. Jesus was in communion with His Father, and so He could be assured that His prayers were heard. We
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Dwight L. Moody (Prevailing Prayer (Moody Classics))
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There can be no prevailing in prayer without travailing in prayer.
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Oswald J. Smith (The Revival We Need)
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Here we are, getting blessings from God day after day; yet how little praise and thanksgiving there is in the Church
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Dwight L. Moody (Prevailing Prayer (Moody Classics))
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My experience is that those who pray most in their closets generally make short prayers in public.
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Dwight L. Moody (Prevailing Prayer (Moody Classics))
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only when we get serious with God can we expect an answer.
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Dwight L. Moody (Prevailing Prayer (Moody Classics))
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It is through prayer that we destroy the kingdom of Darkness and enforce the judgment written that the Gates of Hell shall not prevail - Prayer Moves God, Archbishop Nicholas Duncan-Williams
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Archbishop Duncan-Williams (Prayer Moves God)
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If we read the Word and do not pray, we may become puffed up with knowledge, without the love that buildeth up. If we pray without reading the Word, we shall be ignorant of the mind and will of God, and become mystical and fanatical, and liable to be blown about by every wind of doctrine.
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Dwight L. Moody (Prevailing Prayer (Moody Classics))
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seek by prayer “to move the Arm that moves the world.” D. L. MOODY
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Dwight L. Moody (Prevailing Prayer (Moody Classics))
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May Love and Light prevail. May Divine Wisdom reign supreme. May it transform the darkness; and heal the realms where shadows dwell.
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Anthon St. Maarten
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We fail to prevail with unconverted men because of our more fundamental failure to prevail with God in prayer.
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John R. Mott
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Too often we knock at mercy’s door, and then run away, instead of waiting for an entrance and an answer.
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Dwight L. Moody (Prevailing Prayer (Moody Classics))
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I think we shall find a great many of our prayers that we thought unanswered answered when we get to heaven
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Dwight L. Moody (Prevailing Prayer (Moody Classics))
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So all through the Scriptures you will find that when believing prayer went up to God, the answer came down.
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Dwight L. Moody (Prevailing Prayer (Moody Classics))
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If our sermons are going to reach the hearts and consciences of the people, we must be much in prayer to God, that there may be power with the Word. In
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Dwight L. Moody (Prevailing Prayer (Moody Classics))
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Fiery trials make golden Christians; sanctified afflictions are spiritual promotions.
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Dwight L. Moody (Prevailing Prayer (Moody Classics))
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If we have done wrong to some one, we should never ask God to forgive us until we are willing to make restitution.
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Dwight L. Moody (Prevailing Prayer (Moody Classics))
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Men and women who humbly plod along, doing their duty... who help look after the poor; and who honor the holy Priesthood, who do not run into excesses, who are prayerful in their families, and who acknowledge the Lord in their hearts, they will build up a foundation that the gates of hell cannot prevail against.
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Joseph F. Smith
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So when we get really into communion with God, He lifts up His countenance upon us; and instead of our having gloomy looks, our faces will shine, because God has heard and answered our prayers. Jesus,
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Dwight L. Moody (Prevailing Prayer (Moody Classics))
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Prayer for revival will prevail when it is accompanied by radical amendment of life; not before. All-night prayer meetings that are not preceded by practical repentance may actually be displeasing to God. "To obey is better than sacrifice." We must return to New Testament Christianity, not in creed only but in complete manner of life as well. Separation, obedience, humility, simplicity, gravity, self-control, modesty, cross-bearing: these all must again be made a living part of the total Christian concept and be carried out in everyday conduct. We
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A.W. Tozer (Keys to the Deeper Life)
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Those who have left the deepest impression on this sin-cursed earth have been men and women of prayer.
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Dwight L. Moody (Prevailing Prayer (Moody Classics))
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Prayer was appointed to convey The blessings God designs to give; Long as they live should Christians pray, For only while they pray they live.
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Dwight L. Moody (Prevailing Prayer (Updated, Annotated): A Thorough Study on the Subject of Prayer)
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Never underestimate the ability of prevailing prayer to affect reality and the final end of any matter. Remember, the story is not over until it has come to pass. I believe
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Joel Richardson (The Islamic Antichrist: The Shocking Truth about the Real Nature of the Beast)
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Yesterday was a dark day in the history of humanity, a terrible affront to human dignity. After receiving the news, I followed with intense concern the developing situation, with heartfelt prayers to the Lord. How is it possible to commit acts of such savage cruelty? The human heart has depths from which schemes of unheard-of ferocity sometimes emerge, capable of destroying in a moment the normal daily life of a people. But faith comes to our aid at these times when words seem to fail. Christ’s word is the only one that can give a response to the questions which trouble our spirit. Even if the forces of darkness appear to prevail, those who believe in God know that evil and death do not have the final say. Christian hope is based on this truth; at this time our prayerful trust draws strength from it.
~General Audience, September 12, 2001.
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Pope John Paul II
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When the fallow ground is thoroughly broken up in the hearts of Christians, when they have confessed and made restitution, as I have taught in my former articles--if the work be thorough and honest--they will naturally and inevitably fulfill the conditions, and will prevail in prayer. But it cannot be too distinctly understood that none others will. What we commonly hear in prayer and conference meetings is not prevailing prayer. It is often astonishing and lamentable to witness the delusions that prevail upon the subject. Who that has witnessed real revivals of religion has not been struck with the change that comes over the whole spirit and manner of the prayers of really revived Christians? I do not think I ever could have been converted if I had not discovered the solution of the question: "Why is it that so much that is called prayer is not answered?
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Charles Grandison Finney
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It is well to know that prayer is not compounded of words, words that may fail to express what one desires to say, words that so often cloak inconsistencies, words that may have no deeper source than the physical organs of speech, words that may be spoken to impress mortal ears. The dumb may pray, and that too with the eloquence that prevails in heaven. Prayer is made up of heart throbs and the righteous yearnings of the soul, of supplication based on the realization of need, of contrition and pure desire.
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James E. Talmage (Jesus The Christ - (Illustrated))
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If we read the Word and do not pray, we may become puffed up with knowledge, without the love that buildeth up. If we pray without reading the Word, we shall be ignorant of the mind and will of God, and become mystical and fanatical, and liable to be blown about by every wind of doctrine. The
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Dwight L. Moody (Prevailing Prayer (Moody Classics))
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Faith has no desire to have its own will, when that will is not in accordance with the mind of God; for such a desire would at bottom be the impulse of an unbelief which did not rely upon God’s judgment as our best guide. Faith knows that God’s will is the highest good, and that anything which is beneficial to us will be granted to our petitions.
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Dwight L. Moody (Prevailing Prayer (Moody Classics))
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One who prays much prevails much.
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Matshona Dhliwayo
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If we cannot prevail with men for God, we will at least endeavor to prevail with God for men.
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Charles Haddon Spurgeon (Lectures to My Students)
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As some one has said, God kissed away his soul, and took him home to Himself. “God buried him”—the greatest honor ever paid to mortal man.
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Dwight L. Moody (Prevailing Prayer (Moody Classics))
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Nothing will silence infidels so quickly as Christians everywhere being united.
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Dwight L. Moody (Prevailing Prayer (Moody Classics))
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To do that, we must be clear and right before God. “For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things.
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Dwight L. Moody (Prevailing Prayer (Moody Classics))
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If we love the Lord Jesus Christ the burden of our hearts will be that God may bring us closer together, so that we may love one another and rise above all party feeling.
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Dwight L. Moody (Prevailing Prayer (Moody Classics))
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With the grace of prayer, we shall prevail.
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Lailah Gifty, Akita
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Sometimes the purpose of prayer is to get us out of circumstances, but more often than not, the purpose of prayer is to get us through them. I’m certainly not suggesting we shouldn’t pray deliverance prayers, but there are times we need to pray prevailing prayers. We need to ask God to give us the grace to sustain, the strength to stand firm, and the willpower to keep on keeping on.
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Mark Batterson (Draw the Circle: The 40 Day Prayer Challenge)
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Much time spent with God is the secret of all successful praying. Prayer which is felt as a mighty force is the mediate or immediate product of much time spent with God. Our short prayers owe their point and efficiency to the long ones that have preceded them. The short prevailing prayer cannot be prayed by one who has not prevailed with God in a mightier struggle of long continuance.
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Jennifer Kennedy Dean (He Restores My Soul)
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When the church, the pulpit, and the pew get united, and God’s people are all of one mind, Christianity is like a red-hot ball rolling over the earth, and all the hosts of death and hell cannot stand before it.
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Dwight L. Moody (Prevailing Prayer (Moody Classics))
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he realized that From Cooter to Michael Coble, his purpose as his fallen friend’s sentinel was futile. The world was too harsh and unforgiving, and he, Ahmad, Napoleon James and the residents of Hoptown, armed with optimism, small-caliber firearms, God and their idealistic blockade were insufficient barriers to inevitability. Solidarity, prayer and vengeance were all useless. As always, the strong prevailed, and the weak, the right, and the innocent were slaughtered and forgotten.
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Michael Harriot (The Situation in South Carolina: A Novel)
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Prayer for revival will prevail when it is accompanied by radical amendment of life; not before. All-night prayer meetings that are not preceded by practical repentance may actually be displeasing to God. "To obey is better than sacrifice." We
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A.W. Tozer (Keys to the Deeper Life)
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Lord, there is no one like You to help the powerless against the mighty. Help us, O Lord our God, for we rely on You, and in Your name we have come against this vast army. O Lord, You are our God; do not let man prevail against You.(2 Chronicles 14:11 niv)
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Derek Prince (Prayers & Proclamations: How to Use the Bible as the Authority over Trials and Temptations)
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Moses grew weary, and then his friends assisted him. When at any time your prayer flags, let faith support one hand, and let holy hope uplift the other, and prayer seating itself upon the stone of Israel, the rock of our salvation, will persevere and prevail.
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Charles Haddon Spurgeon (Morning and Evening)
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THE GREAT NEED of our world, our nation, and our churches is people who know how to prevail in prayer. Moments of pious wishes blandly expressed to God once or twice a day will bring little change on earth or among the people. Kind thoughts expressed to Him in five or six sentences, after reading a paragraph or two of mildly religious sentiments once a day from some devotional writing, will not bring the kingdom of God to earth or shake the gates of hell and repel the attacks of evil on our culture and our civilization.
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Wesley L. Duewel (Mighty Prevailing Prayer: Experiencing the Power of Answered Prayer)
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God is Power— Infinite, Irresistible, Inexorable, Indifferent. And yet, God is Pliable— Trickster, Teacher, Chaos, Clay. God exists to be shaped. God is Change. This is the literal truth. God can’t be resisted or stopped, but can be shaped and focused. This means God is not to be prayed to. Prayers only help the person doing the praying, and then, only if they strengthen and focus that person’s resolve. If they’re used that way, they can help us in our only real relationship with God. They help us to shape God and to accept and work with the shapes that God imposes on us. God is power, and in the end, God prevails. But we can rig the game in our own favor if we understand that God exists to be shaped, and will be shaped, with or without our forethought, with or without our intent.
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Octavia E. Butler (Parable of the Sower (Earthseed, #1))
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That isn’t what God is for, but there are times when that’s what prayer is for. And there are times when that’s what these verses are for. God is Change, and in the end, God prevails. But there’s hope in understanding the nature of God—not punishing or jealous, but infinitely malleable. There’s comfort in realizing that everyone and everything yields to God. There’s power in knowing that God can be focused, diverted, shaped by anyone at all. But there’s no power in having strength and brains, and yet waiting for God to fix things for you or take revenge for you.
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Octavia E. Butler (Parable of the Sower (Earthseed, #1))
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If you get love into your soul, so that the grace of God may come down in answer to prayer, there will be no trouble about reaching the people. It is not by eloquent sermons that perishing souls are going to be reached; we need the power of God in order that the blessing may come down. The
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Dwight L. Moody (Prevailing Prayer (Moody Classics))
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Others Exonerated the plebs and threw the blame upon the patricians: it was owing to their artful canvassing that the plebeians found the road to office blocked; if the plebs might have a breathing-spell from the mingled prayers and menaces of the nobles, they would think of their friends when they went to vote, and to the protection they had already won would add authority. It was resolved in order to do away with canvassing, that the tribunes should propose a law forbidding anyone to whiten his toga, for the purpose of announcing himself a candidate. This may now appear a trivial thing and one scarcely to be considered seriously, but at the time it kindled a furious struggle between the patricians and the plebs. Yet the tribunes prevailed and carried their law: and it was clear that the plebeians in their irritated mood would support the men of their own order.
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Livy (The History of Rome, Books 1-5: The Early History of Rome)
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I would not have the anniversaries of our victories celebrated, nor those of our defeats made fast days and spent in humiliation and prayer; but I would like to see truthful history written. Such history will do full credit to the courage, endurance and soldierly ability of the American citizen, no matter what section of the country he hailed from, or in what ranks he fought. The justice of the cause which in the end prevailed, will, I doubt not, come to be acknowledged by every citizen of the land, in time. For the present, and so long as there are living witnesses of the great war of sections, there will be people who will not be consoled for the loss of a cause which they believed to be holy. As time passes, people, even of the South, will begin to wonder how it was possible that their ancestors ever fought for or justified institutions which acknowledged the right of property in man.
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Ulysses S. Grant (The Complete Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S Grant)
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Most churches do not grow beyond the spiritual health of their leadership. Many churches have a pastor who is trying to lead people to a Savior he has yet to personally encounter. If spiritual gifting is no proof of authentic faith, then certainly a job title isn't either.
You must have a clear sense of calling before you enter ministry. Being a called man is a lonely job, and many times you feel like God has abandoned you in your ministry. Ministry is more than hard. Ministry is impossible. And unless we have a fire inside our bones compelling us, we simply will not survive. Pastoral ministry is a calling, not a career. It is not a job you pursue.
If you don’t think demons are real, try planting a church! You won’t get very far in advancing God’s kingdom without feeling resistance from the enemy.
If I fail to spend two hours in prayer each morning, the devil gets the victory through the day. Once a month I get away for the day, once a quarter I try to get out for two days, and once a year I try to get away for a week. The purpose of these times is rest, relaxation, and solitude with God.
A pastor must always be fearless before his critics and fearful before his God. Let us tremble at the thought of neglecting the sheep. Remember that when Christ judges us, he will judge us with a special degree of strictness.
The only way you will endure in ministry is if you determine to do so through the prevailing power of the Holy Spirit. The unsexy reality of the pastorate is that it involves hard work—the heavy-lifting, curse-ridden, unyielding employment of your whole person for the sake of the church. Pastoral ministry requires dogged, unyielding determination, and determination can only come from one source—God himself.
Passive staff members must be motivated. Erring elders and deacons must be confronted. Divisive church members must be rebuked. Nobody enjoys doing such things (if you do, you should be not be a pastor!), but they are necessary in order to have a healthy church over the long haul. If you allow passivity, laziness, and sin to fester, you will soon despise the church you pastor.
From the beginning of sacred Scripture (Gen. 2:17) to the end (Rev. 21:8), the penalty for sin is death. Therefore, if we sin, we should die. But it is Jesus, the sinless one, who dies in our place for our sins. The good news of the gospel is that Jesus died to take to himself the penalty of our sin.
The Bible is not Christ-centered because it is generally about Jesus. It is Christ-centered because the Bible’s primary purpose, from beginning to end, is to point us toward the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus for the salvation and sanctification of sinners.
Christ-centered preaching goes much further than merely providing suggestions for how to live; it points us to the very source of life and wisdom and explains how and why we have access to him. Felt needs are set into the context of the gospel, so that the Christian message is not reduced to making us feel better about ourselves.
If you do not know how sinful you are, you feel no need of salvation. Sin-exposing preaching helps people come face-to-face with their sin and their great need for a Savior.
We can worship in heaven, and we can talk to God in heaven, and we can read our Bibles in heaven, but we can’t share the gospel with our lost friends in heaven.
“Would your city weep if your church did not exist?”
It was crystal-clear for me. Somehow, through fear or insecurity, I had let my dreams for our church shrink. I had stopped thinking about the limitless things God could do and had been distracted by my own limitations. I prayed right there that God would forgive me of my small-mindedness. I asked God to forgive my lack of faith that God could use a man like me to bring the message of the gospel through our missionary church to our lost city. I begged God to renew my heart and mind with a vision for our city that was more like Christ's.
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Darrin Patrick (Church Planter: The Man, The Message, The Mission)
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If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.” Now in the fourth chapter of James, in the third verse, we find some spoken of whose prayers were not answered: “Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss.” There are a great many prayers not answered because there is not the right motive; we have not complied with the Word of God; we ask amiss.
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Dwight L. Moody (Prevailing Prayer (Moody Classics))
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About 1,500 gathered for two hours of lively, focused prayer. Later, I asked Pastor Jim Cymbala why so many were attending the Brooklyn Tab prayer meetings when many other churches have cancelled their prayer meetings for lack of interest. He answered, “You would also have a full church on prayer meeting night if your people actually believed that God answers prayer!” If we actually believed God answers prayer!
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Dwight L. Moody (Prevailing Prayer (Moody Classics))
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A traveler in China visited a heathen temple on a great feast day. Many were the worshippers of the hideous idol enclosed in a sacred shrine. The visitor noticed that most of the devotees brought with them small pieces of paper on which prayers had been written or printed. These they would wrap up in little balls of stiff mud and fling at the idol. He enquired the reason for this strange proceeding and was told that if the mud ball stuck fast to the idol, then the prayer would assuredly be answered; but if the mud fell off, the prayer was rejected by the god. We may smile at this peculiar way of testing the adequacy of a prayer. But is it not a fact that the majority of Christian men and women who pray to a living God know very little about real prevailing prayer? Yet prayer is the key which unlocks the door of God’s treasure house.
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An Unknown Christian (The Kneeling Christian)
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No, not despairingly Come I to Thee; No, not distrustingly Bend I the knee; Sin hath gone over me, Yet is this still my plea, Jesus hath died. Ah, mine iniquity Crimson has been; Infinite, infinite, Sin upon sin; Sin of not loving Thee, Sin of not trusting Thee. Infinite sin. Lord, I confess to Thee Sadly my sin; All I am, tell I Thee, All I have been. Purge Thou my sin away, Wash Thou my soul this day; Lord, make me clean!
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Dwight L. Moody (Prevailing Prayer (Moody Classics))
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Can you, in short, be prevailed on to quit this scene of public triumph and oblige your friend Eleanor with your company in Gloucestershire? I am almost ashamed to make the request, though its presumption would certainly appear greater to every creature in Bath than yourself. Modesty such as yours—but not for the world would I pain it by open praise. If you can be induced to honour us with a visit, you will make us happy beyond expression.
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Jane Austen (The Complete Works of Jane Austen (All Novels, Short Stories, Unfinished Works, Juvenilia, Letters, Poems, Prayers, Memoirs and Biographies - Fully Illustrated))
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Still, prayer itself is an art that only the Holy Spirit can teach us. He is the giver of all prayer. Pray for prayer. Pray until you can pray. Pray to be helped to pray, and do not give up praying because you cannot pray. It is when you think you cannot pray that you are most praying. Sometimes, when you have no sort of comfort in your supplications, it is then that your heart, all broken and cast down, is really wrestling and truly prevailing with the Most High.
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Charles Haddon Spurgeon (Power in Prayer)
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I PRAY TODAY I pray today for
Those who are homeless to find shelter.
Those who are depressed to discover joy.
Those who are addicted to find release.
Those who are lonely to find a friend.
Those who are confused or lost to find a path.
Those who are heartbroken
to know that it will pass.
Those who are sick to find healing.
Those who live in darkness to be covered in light.
Those who are dying
to know that they have lived.
I pray today for peace where there is unrest,
for love to prevail over all. —corrine de winter
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June Cotner (Serenity Prayers: Prayers, Poems, and Prose to Soothe Your Soul)
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Now if we are always falling back on these 'if-it-be-Thy-will prayers' we are debasing this most well known prayer promise of the apostle John, and making it a prayer 'let-out', a useful carpet under which we can sweep all our unanswered prayers. We imply that what he is really saying is this: 'And this is the lack of confidence which we have in Him, that unless we happen to ask according to His will, He will not hear us, and we shall not have our petition.' So the promise that was intended to confirm our faith serves only to cover our unbelief and to confirm us in our state of weakness, in seeking to prevail with God.
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Arthur Wallis (Pray in the Spirit)
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I too entered the Lager as a nonbeliever, and as a nonbeliever I was liberated and have lived to this day. Actually, the experience of the Lager with its frightful iniquity confirmed me in my nonbelief. It has prevented me, and still prevents me, from conceiving of any form of providence or transcendent justice . . . I must nevertheless admit that I experienced (and again only once) the temptation to yield, to seek refuge in prayer. This happened in October 1944, in the one moment in which I lucidly perceived the imminence of death . . . naked and compressed among my naked companions with my personal index card in hand, I was waiting to file past the ‘commission’ that with one glance would decide whether I should go immediately into the gas chamber or was instead strong enough to go on working. For one instance I felt the need to ask for help and asylum; then, despite my anguish, equanimity prevailed: one does not change the rules of the game at the end of the match, nor when you are losing. A prayer under these conditions would have been not only absurd (what rights could I claim? and from whom?) but blasphemous, obscene, laden with the greatest impiety of which a nonbeliever is capable. I rejected the temptation: I knew that otherwise were I to survive, I would have to be ashamed of it.” —FROM PRIMO LEVI: THE DROWNED AND THE SAVED (1986)
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Christopher Hitchens (The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever)
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Let’s Pray Together Heavenly Father, You have said, “Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails” (Prov. 19:21). We ask you to fulfill Your word and make Your purpose reign in our lives. We all have plans and goals that we are pursuing. We ask you to establish whatever is from You—whatever is in line with Your purpose—and cause to fade away whatever is not from You. We honor you as our Creator and as our loving heavenly Father. We affirm that it is You who work in us to will and to act according to Your good purpose (Phil. 2:13). Renew our minds so we may understand Your ways and Your plans more fully. We pray this in the name of Jesus, who is our Way, Truth, and Life. Amen.
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Myles Munroe (Understanding The Purpose And Power Of Prayer)
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Lord God, I confess that my son/daughter is loosed from all bondage—set free by the precious blood of Jesus. No past, present, or future bondage will ever prevail against ____________. The world, sin, deception, satanic enticements, the flesh, even fear of death—none of these things will ever be able to enslave this child who is dedicated to You. I pray that You will always be a deliverer, guardian, and guide to ____________, bringing him/her out of any weakness, darkness, or difficult situation of life. I pray that by Your mighty hand You will lead my child into the promised land of his/her destiny. You are the almighty God! There is nothing too hard for You! So I declare redemption over my offspring, believing it will come to pass. In the name of Jesus, amen (let it be so)!
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Mike Shreve (65 Promises From God for Your Child: Powerful Prayers for Supernatural Results)
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In both instances of Franklin and Jefferson, revisionist writers have emphasized those aspects of their beliefs that are consistent with Christian faith, while discounting their more rational, heterodox views. As stated, a common technique is to define deism narrowly, as promoting a worldview similar to atheism, and to portray it as incompatible with Christianity. A “true deist” would believe only in a “Clock-maker” deity and would eschew the value of prayer or any merit in the Bible. Any acknowledgment of providence now moves one from the ranks of deism into the bosom of Christianity, now broadly defined. Imagining the metaphorical cup as being half-full rather than the reverse, revisionist writers claim that any demonstration of faith makes one Christian or evangelical, instead of acknowledging how the beliefs of many Founders diverged from the prevailing religious orthodoxy of the time.
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Steven K. Green (Inventing a Christian America: The Myth of the Religious Founding)
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You are to consider that God does not hear you for your prayers’ sake (though not without them), but for His name’s sake and His Son’s sake, and because you are His child. The mother does not neglect to hear and relieve her child when the child cries, but she is tender, not because the child cries more loudly, but because the child cries, and the weaker the child is, the more pity she shows. Again, though the performance in itself might be weak, yet considered as a prayer, it might be strong, because a weak prayer may set the strong God to work. The faith we produce may be weak, yet because its object is Christ, therefore it justifies. So it is in prayer; it prevails, not because of the performance itself, but because of the name in which it is made, even Christ’s name. Therefore, as a weak faith justifies, so a weak prayer prevails as well as a stronger, and both for the same reason, for faith attributes all to God, and so does prayer. As faith is merely a receiving grace, so prayer is a begging grace.
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Thomas Goodwin (A Habitual Sight of Him: The Christ-Centered Piety of Thomas Goodwin (Profiles in Reformed Spirituality))
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Jonathan Trumbull, as Governor of Connecticut, in official proclamation: 'The examples of holy men teach us that we should seek Him with fasting and prayer, with penitent confession of our sins, and hope in His mercy through Jesus Christ the Great Redeemer.” Proclamation for a Day of Fasting and Prayer, March 9, 1774'
Samuel Chase, while Chief Justice of Maryland,1799 (Runkel v Winemiller) wrote: 'By our form of government, the Christian religion is the established religion...'
The Pennsylvania Supreme court held (Updegraph v The Commonwealth), 1824: 'Christianity, general Christianity, is and always has been a part of the common law...not Christianity founded on any particular religious tenets; not Christianity with an established church, but Christianity with liberty of conscience to all men...'
In Massachusetts, the Constitution reads: 'Any every denomination of Christians, demeaning themselves peaceably, and as good subjects of the commonwealth, shall be equally under the protection of the law: and no subordination of any one sect or denomination to another shall ever be established by law.'
Samuel Adams, as Governor of Massachusetts in a Proclamation for a Day of Fasting and Prayer, 1793: 'we may with one heart and voice humbly implore His gracious and free pardon through Jesus Christ, supplicating His Divine aid . . . [and] above all to cause the religion of Jesus Christ, in its true spirit, to spread far and wide till the whole earth shall be filled with His glory.'
Judge Nathaniel Freeman, 1802. Instructed Massachusetts Grand Juries as follows: "The laws of the Christian system, as embraced by the Bible, must be respected as of high authority in all our courts... . [Our government] originating in the voluntary compact of a people who in that very instrument profess the Christian religion, it may be considered, not as republic Rome was, a Pagan, but a Christian republic."
Josiah Bartlett, Governor of New Hampshire, in an official proclamation, urged: 'to confess before God their aggravated transgressions and to implore His pardon and forgiveness through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ . . . [t]hat the knowledge of the Gospel of Jesus Christ may be made known to all nations, pure and undefiled religion universally prevail, and the earth be fill with the glory of the Lord.'
Chief Justice James Kent of New York, held in 1811 (People v Ruggles): '...whatever strikes at the root of Christianity tends manifestly to the dissolution of civil government... We are a Christian people, and the morality of the country is deeply engrafted upon Christianity... Christianity in its enlarged sense, as a religion revealed and taught in the Bible, is part and parcel of the law of the land...
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Samuel Adams
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When difficulties confront him he no longer blames them upon the inscrutable enmity of remote and ineffable powers; he blames them upon his own ignorance and incompetence. And when he sets out to remedy that ignorance and to remove that incompetence he does not look to any such powers for light and leading; he puts his whole trust in his own enterprise and ingenuity. Not infrequently he overestimates his capacities and comes to grief, but his failures, at worst, are much fewer than the failures of his fathers. Does pestilence, on occasion, still baffle his medicine? Then it is surely less often than the pestilences of old baffled sacrifice and prayer. Does war remain to shame him before the bees, and wasteful and witless government to make him blush when he contemplates the ants? Then war at its most furious is still less cruel than Hell, and the harshest statutes ever devised by man have more equity and benevolence in them than the irrational and appalling jurisprudence of the Christian God.
Today every such man knows that the laws which prevail in the universe, whatever their origin in some remote and incomprehensible First Purpose, manifest themselves in complete impersonality, and that no representation to any superhuman Power, however imagined, can change their operation in the slightest. He knows that when they seem arbitrary and irrational it is not because omnipotent and inscrutable Presences are playing with them, as a child might play with building blocks; but because the human race is yet too ignorant to penetrate to their true workings. The whole history of progress, as the modern mind sees it, is a history of such penetrations. ... Each in its turn has narrowed the dominion and prerogative of the gods.
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H.L. Mencken
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At its core, prayer is not about the words that are spoken. Rather, it’s about uplifting our hearts to a God who can be trusted. It’s not about religious-sounding phrases, since tears and groans often receive the strongest responses. It is primitive and heart-centered, which is what makes it so unacceptable to many refined, intellectually proud believers and churches. In its purest form, prayer has a raw fervency and faith that prevails with God and secures answers otherwise thought impossible.
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Jim Cymbala (Spirit Rising: Tapping into the Power of the Holy Spirit)
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At any moment, a human being can receive new energy from the wellspring of the universe. However, to receive this pristine energy, our thoughts need to connect with it. We can do this with pure prayer or with peace-loving thoughts such as “I am so grateful! Everything will definitely get better!” or “May peace prevail on Earth!
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Ervin Laszlo (The Akashic Experience: Science and the Cosmic Memory Field)
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These two instruments of grace must be applied in the right proportion. If we read the Word and do not pray, we may become puffed up with knowledge, without the love that builds others up. If we pray without reading the Word, we will be ignorant of the mind and will of God, and become mystical and fanatical, and liable to be blown around by every wind of doctrine
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Dwight L. Moody (Prevailing Prayer (Updated, Annotated): A Thorough Study on the Subject of Prayer)
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Might God not ordain that his fullest blessings will come to the church when we prevail in prayer with the intensity of fasting? That kind of intensification of prayer is what fasting is. It’s a physical exclamation point at the end of the sentence, “We hunger for you, O God, to come in power.” It’s a cry with our body, not just our soul: “I really mean it, LORD! This much, I hunger for you. I want the manifestation of you yourself more than I want food.
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John Piper (A Hunger for God (Redesign): Desiring God through Fasting and Prayer)
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The Scottish pastor Thomas Brooks said, “The power of religion and godliness lives, thrives, or dies, as closet [private] prayer lives, thrives, or dies. Godliness never rises to a higher pitch than when men keep closest to their closets.” Prayer—prevailing,
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Paul Chappell (Renew: 90 Days of Spiritual Refreshment)
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Gospel optimism leads to kingdom prayer. This psalm should move us to pray—and to pray with great hope and expectation—that the kingdom of Christ will prevail against the powers of evil and that all His elect will be brought in and made holy.
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Joel R. Beeke (The Reformation Heritage KJV Study Bible)
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There is tremendous need in today's World, and a big challenge for Women (especially the Christians) to "be successful”; at work/proffession and at home/marital obligations even in a cultural bias and sex prejudiced societies, oppression of poverty, increasing moral and value decadence, and hence unskilled/educated girls, more poverty, broken or hurting homes and relationhips. Prayers alone does not produce the SUCCESS - neither is it significantly a matter of background, the society or sex but the extent of self-development; virtue, commitment and the right attitudes, education for useful living, and also through hardwork and persistence!
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Ibiloye Abiodun Christian (A Prayerful and Virtuous Woman Always Prevails)
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Origen was most articulate about this struggle. “For you who are redeemed by Christ,” he challenged believers in Caesarea, “a physical sword has been removed from your hands.” But this did not mean they were powerless. “In its place the ‘sword of the Spirit’ has been given and you must seize it.” 131 Christians fight by means of “prayers and fasts, justice and piety, gentleness, chastity and all the virtues of self control.” And the result? “One saint who prays is much more powerful than countless sinners who wage war.” 132 So pray and live faithfully, Origen urged the Caesarean believers: “If you wish to prevail, lift up your hands and your deeds.” 133 Along with faithful action, prayer was the Christians’ means of being socially responsible.
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Alan Kreider (The Patient Ferment of the Early Church: The Improbable Rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire)
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We can prevail with prayer.
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Lailah Gifty Akita
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If your prayers are dull and languid, remember the intercession of Christ. He ever appears in the presence of God for you; and how can your cause miscarry which has such an advocate? If the poor widow was heard, even by the unjust judge, shall not the dearly beloved Son of God prevail when he makes intercession to a most gracious Father? a Father who loves both him and his people?
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James Hervey
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If we embrace every problem with a prayer, we shall prevail.
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Lailah Gifty Akita
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Desperation is God's hammer: It demolishes the stronghold of fear and shatters the chains of our excuses. When desperation exceeds our fears, progress begins.
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Francis Frangipane (Prevailing Prayer: Becoming a House of Prayer)
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Whoever wishes for the heavenly blessings must first learn to prevail persistently in prayer.
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Lailah Gifty Akita
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I would not have the anniversaries of our victories celebrated, nor those of our defeats made fast days and spent in humiliation and prayer; but I would like to see truthful history written. Such history will do full credit to the courage, endurance and soldierly ability of the American citizen, no matter what section of the country he hailed from, or in what ranks he fought. The justice of the cause which in the end prevailed, will, I doubt not, come
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Ulysses S. Grant (The Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant (Volumes I and II))
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The land of South Africa was given back to her people by God and no evil plan from the pit of hell that will
ever prevail.The God we serve is the God of justice and our only hope.
He will answer by fire and give us victory again and again and no one on the earth can undo what God has done and what He is about to do in our beautiful land of South Africa
in the mighty name of Jesus. We know we are loved and protected by you King Jesus. Thank you Lord for your unfailing love.
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Euginia Herlihy
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The land of South Africa was given back to her people by God and no evil plan from the pit of hell that will ever prevail. The God we serve is the God of justice and our only hope. He will answer by fire and give us victory again and again and no one on the earth can undo what God has done and what He is about to do in our beautiful land of South Africa in the mighty name of Jesus. We know that we are loved and protected by you King Jesus and thank you Lord for your unfailing love.
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Euginia Herlihy
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The Blood Covenant I've a right to grace, in the hardest place, On the ground of the Blood Covenant: I've a right to peace that can never cease, On the ground of the Blood Covenant. I've a right to joy, that can never cloy, On the ground of the Blood Covenant: I've a right to power, yes, this very hour, On the ground of the Blood Covenant. I've a right to health, thru my Father's wealth, On the ground of the Blood Covenant; I my healing take, Satan's hold must break, On the ground of the Blood Covenant. I've a legal right, now to win this fight, On the ground of the Blood Covenant; I will take my part with courageous heart, On the ground of the Blood Covenant. Now my rights I claim, in His Mighty Name, On the ground of the Blood Covenant; And my prayers prevail, tho all Hell assail, On the ground of the Blood Covenant. On the ground of the Blood, On the ground of the Blood Covenant; I will claim my rights, tho the enemy fights, On the ground of the Blood Covenant.
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E.W. Kenyon (The Blood Covenant: Illustrated Edition)
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Do you spend 90% of your prayer time binding and rebuking the devil and 10% communicating with God? It sounds to me as though you’re being distracted by the enemy. Do you bind the “prevailing spirit” over your unsaved friends’ lives instead of actually sharing the gospel with them? It sounds to me as though the devil has done a great job distracting you from your mission.
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Denver Cheddie (Spiritual Warfare without the Spiritual Weirdness: A Bible Study on Spiritual Warfare and the Armor of God)
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Whenever there is a prayer, peace prevails.
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Lailah Gifty Akita
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Prayer must carry on our work as well as preaching. He who does not pray earnestly for his people does not preach wholeheartedly to them. If we do not prevail with God to give them faith and repentance, we will never prevail with them to believe and repent. When our own hearts are so far out of order, and theirs are so far out of order, we are unlikely to be successful if we do not prevail with God to heal and help them.
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Richard Baxter (The Reformed Pastor: The Duties and Methods of Labors for the Souls of Men [Updated and Annotated])
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So even though he’s been given temporary clearance to strategize and antagonize, we don’t need to pray from a position of fear or weakness against him. Quite the opposite. You and I, coming to the Father through the mighty name of Jesus, can pray like the victorious saints of God we’ve been empowered to be. And we can expect to prevail. But we can’t expect to experience this power unless we’re serious about joining the battle in prayer.
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Priscilla Shirer (Fervent: A Woman's Battle Plan to Serious, Specific, and Strategic Prayer)
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When He said “on earth as it is in heaven,” He actually meant what He said. He was not trying to keep us busy with spiritual activities until the day He comes back to rescue us from the prevailing darkness. He longs for places on the earth that remind Him of heaven, places in which He feels at home. Prayer and radical obedience make such places possible.
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Bill Johnson (The Power That Changes the World: Creating Eternal Impact in the Here and Now)
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God has made it incumbent upon us to struggle to raise high His word. Gihad is a pillar of Islam, exactly like prayer and fasting. Indeed, gihad is the most important of those pillars but the corrupt rulers dedicated to the pursuit of money and the pleasures of the flesh who have ruled the Islamic world in times of decadence have attempted, with the help of their hypocritical men of religion, to exclude gihad from the pillars of Islam, knowing that if the people cleaved fast to gihad, it would in the end be turned against them and cost them their thrones. In this way, by eliminating gihad, Islam was robbed of its real meaning and our great religion was transformed into a collection of meaningless rituals that the Muslims performed like athletic exercises, mere physical movements without spiritual significance. When the Muslims abandoned gihad, they became slaves to this world, clinging to it, shy of death, cowards. Thus their enemies prevailed
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Alaa Al Aswany (The Yacoubian Building)
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We lean to our own understanding, or we bank on service and do away with prayer, and consequently by succeeding in the external we fail in the eternal, because in the eternal we succeed only by prevailing prayer. – Oswald Chambers
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Duke Taber (100 Christian Quotes by 10 Great Christians)
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January 9 READ Psalm 7:1–5. 1 LORD my God, I take refuge in you; save and deliver me from all who pursue me, 2 or they will tear me apart like a lion and rip me to pieces with no one to rescue me. 3 LORD my God, if I have done this and there is guilt on my hands— 4 if I have repaid my ally with evil or without cause have robbed my foe— 5 then let my enemy pursue and overtake me; let him trample my life to the ground and make me sleep in the dust. SMEAR CAMPAIGN. How do we deal with gossip and slander and the loss of our reputation? David shows us straightaway. He doesn’t say, “I will take refuge in God,” but rather shows that he already has, that he is already safe. How can he feel that way before he knows whether the smear campaign will be thwarted? The answer: if we trust in God’s wisdom and will, then we have peace regardless of the immediate outcome. It is only God’s opinion of us that counts, and that will prevail. Prayer: Lord, some criticisms are terribly unfair. My deepest comfort is knowing that you see all things and will in the end set all things right. So I will not desperately defend myself or strike out at my accusers and insinuators. You know the truth, and that suffices for me. I leave this all in your hands. Amen.
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Timothy J. Keller (The Songs of Jesus: A Year of Daily Devotions in the Psalms)
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Mr. Hazlit, won’t you please, please help me find my reticule? It is one of my dearest possessions. I feel horrid for having lost track of it, and I’m too embarrassed to prevail upon anybody else but you to aid me in my hour of need.” She turned her best swain-slaying gaze on him in the moonlight, the look Val had told her never to use on his friends. For good measure, she let a little sincerity into her eyes, because she’d spoken nothing but the truth. “God help me.” Hazlit scrubbed a hand over his face. “Stick to quoting the law with me, please. I might have a prayer of retaining my wits.” She dropped the pleading expression. “You’ll keep our bargain, then?” “I will make an attempt to find this little purse of yours, but there are no guarantees in my work, Miss Windham. Let’s put a limit on the investigation—say, four weeks. If I haven’t found the thing by then, I’ll refund half your money.” “You needn’t.” She rose, relieved to have her business concluded. “I can spare it, and this is important to me.” “Where are you going?” He rose, as well, as manners required. But Maggie had the sense he was also just too… primordial to let a woman go off on her own in the moonlight. “I’m going back to the ballroom. We’ve been out here quite long enough, unless you’re again trying to wiggle out of your obligations?” “No need to be nasty.” He came closer and winged his arm at her. “We’ve had our bit of air, but you’ve yet to tell me anything that would aid me in attaining your goal. What does this reticule look like? Who has seen you with it? Where did you acquire it? When did you last have it?” “All of that?” “That and more if it’s so precious to you,” he said, leading her back toward the more-traveled paths. “That is just a start. I will want to establish who had access to the thing, what valuables it contained, and who might have been motivated to steal it.” “Steal?” She went still, dropping his arm, for this possibility honestly hadn’t occurred to her. She realized, as he replaced her hand on his arm, that she’d held the thought of theft away from her awareness, an unacknowledged fear. “You think somebody would steal a little pin money? People are hung for stealing a few coins, Mr. Hazlit, and transported on those awful ships, and… you think it was a thief?” “You clearly do not.” She was going to let him know in no uncertain terms that no, she could not have been victimized by a thief. She was too careful, too smart. She’d hired only staff with the best references, she seldom had visitors, and such a thing was utterly… “I did not reach that conclusion. I don’t want to.” Voices
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Grace Burrowes (Lady Maggie's Secret Scandal (The Duke's Daughters, #2; Windham, #5))
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thou content to leave thy prayer in his hands, who knows when to give, and how to give, and what to give, and what to withhold. So pleading, earnestly, importunately, yet with humility and resignation, thou shalt surely prevail.
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Charles Haddon Spurgeon (Morning and Evening Daily Devotions with Charles Spurgeon Book (Annotated))
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MARCH 21 YOU WILL SPOIL THOSE WHO ATTEMPT TO SPOIL YOU WHEN THE EGYPTIANS enslaved My people, they oppressed My people and made their lives bitter with hard labor. They even demanded the death of My people’s firstborn sons, ruthlessly stealing from them and spoiling their lives with sorrow and want. But behold, I have created the spoiler to wreak havoc on those who attack My people. Just as I enabled My people to take the silver and gold of the Egyptians with them when I freed them from their captivity in Egypt, so have I given you the power to spoil those who attempt to spoil you. No weapon forged against you will prevail, for this is the heritage of My servants. Through My Son you have been given the authority to triumph over the powers and authorities that would threaten to oppress and enslave you. ISAIAH 54:16–17; EXODUS 12:35–36; COLOSSIANS 2:13–15 Prayer Declaration Lead the princes of darkness away spoiled. I bind the enemy, strip him of his armor, and divide his spoils. Lord, You have spoiled principalities and powers. I spoil the enemy and take back his goods in the name of Jesus. The enemy will not spoil me, but he will be spoiled. Let the fortresses of darkness be spoiled in the name of Jesus.
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John Eckhardt (Daily Declarations for Spiritual Warfare: Biblical Principles to Defeat the Devil)
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Prayer and God’s word connect us to God’s presence even with the light and help of the Holy Spirit.
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Ibiloye Abiodun Christian (A Prayerful and Virtuous Woman Always Prevails)
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APRIL 20 TAKE POSSESSION OF THE GATE OF THE ENEMY BECAUSE MY SERVANT Abraham was willing to serve me wholeheartedly, even to the sacrifice of his own son, I established My covenant with him and his descendants for eternity, and I promised that his descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies. This promise is for you and for your descendants. Serve Me with your whole heart, and I will plant your seed in all the nations of the earth, and you and your descendants will possess the gates of their enemies. You will use the battering ram of My holiness to destroy the gates of the enemy and to overthrow the kingdoms of darkness. The gates of hell will have no power to prevail against My servants, and I will give you the keys of the kingdoms of earth. GENESIS 22:14–18; EZEKIEL 21:22; MATTHEW 16:18 Prayer Declaration Through Your Son, Jesus, let me possess the gate of the enemy. I release battering rams against the gates of hell, and they shall not prevail against me. Open to me the gates of righteousness that I may enter in. Let the gates of my life and city be open to the King of glory.
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John Eckhardt (Daily Declarations for Spiritual Warfare: Biblical Principles to Defeat the Devil)
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LISTEN TO ME CONTINUALLY. I have much to communicate to you, so many people and situations in need of prayer. I am training you to set your mind on Me more and more, tuning out distractions through the help of My Spirit. Walk with Me in holy trust, responding to My initiatives rather than trying to make things fit your plans. I died to set you free, and that includes freedom from compulsive planning. When your mind spins with a multitude of thoughts, you cannot hear My voice. A mind preoccupied with planning pays homage to the idol of control. Turn from this idolatry back to Me. Listen to Me and live abundantly! So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. JOHN 8 : 36 Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the LORD’s purpose that prevails. PROVERBS 19 : 21 “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.” JOHN 10 : 27
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Sarah Young (Jesus Calling, with Scripture References: Enjoying Peace in His Presence (A 365-Day Devotional) (Jesus Calling®))