Quotes & Sayings About Prayer Oswald Chambers

Our true character comes out in the way we pray. — Oswald Chambers

Do not have as your motive the desire to be known as a praying man. Get an inner chamber in which to pray where no one knows you are praying, shut the door, and talk to God in secret. — Oswald Chambers

Never make the blunder of trying to forecast the way God is going to answer your prayer. — Oswald Chambers

A sentimentalist is one who delights to have high and devout emotions stirred whilst reading in an arm-chair, or in a prayer meeting, but he never translates his emotions into action. Consequently a sentimentalist is usually callous, self-centred and selfish, because the emotions he likes to have stirred do not cost him anything. — Oswald Chambers

We tend to use prayer as a last resort, but God wants it to be our first line of defense. We pray when there's nothing else we can do, but God wants us to pray before we do anything at all.
Most of us would prefer, however, to spend our time doing something that will get immediate results. We don't want to wait for God to resolve matters in His good time because His idea of 'good time' is seldom in sync with ours. — Oswald Chambers

Too often we treat prayer as the preparation for the work of the church. Do you not see? Prayer IS the work of the church. — Oswald Chambers

It is not so true that "prayer changes things" as that prayer changes me and I change things. — Oswald Chambers

The purpose of prayer is to reveal the presence of God equally present, all the time, in every condition. — Oswald Chambers

It is impossible to conduct your life as a disciple without definite times of secret prayer — Oswald Chambers

You say, "But He has not answered." He has, He is so near to you that His silence is the answer. His silence is big with terrific meaning that you cannot understand yet, but presently you will. — Oswald Chambers

God does not exist to answer our prayers, but by our prayers we come to discern the mind of God. — Oswald Chambers

If we pray only because we want answers, we will become irritated and angry with God. We receive an answer every time we pray, but it does not always come in the way we expect, and our spiritual irritation shows our refusal to identify ourselves truly with our Lord in prayer. We are not here to prove that God answers prayer, but to be living trophies of God's grace. — Oswald Chambers

One great effect of prayer is that it enables the soul to command the body. By obedience I make my body submissive to my soul, but prayer puts my soul in command of my body. — Oswald Chambers

Prayer is not getting things from God. That is a most initial stage; prayer is getting into perfect communion with God: I tell Him what I know He knows in order that I may get to know it as He does. — Oswald Chambers

If you have ever prayed in the dawn you will ask yourself why you were so foolish as not to do it always: it is difficult to get into communion with God in the midst of the hurly-burly of the day. — Oswald Chambers

I want to tell you a growing conviction with me, and that is that as we obey the leadings of the Spirit of God, we enable God to answer the prayers of other people. I mean that our lives, my life, is the answer to someone's prayer, prayed perhaps centuries ago.
It is more and more impossible to me to have programmes and plans because God alone has the plan, and our plans are only apt to hinder Him, and make it necessary for Him to break them up. I have the unspeakable knowledge that my life is the answer to prayers, and that God is blessing me and making me a blessing entirely of His sovereign grace and nothing to do with my merits, saving as I am bold enough to trust His leading and not the dictates of my own wisdom and common sense. — Oswald Chambers

Is the Son of God praying in me, or am I dictating to Him? ... Prayer is not simply getting things from God, that is a most initial form of prayer; prayer is getting into perfect communion with God. If the Son of God is formed in us by regeneration, He will press forward in front of our common sense and change our attitude to the things about which we pray. — Oswald Chambers

Prayer is not logical, it is a mysterious moral working of the Holy Spirit. — Oswald Chambers

Prayer is not only asking, it is an attitude of heart that produces an atmosphere in which asking is perfectly natural, and Jesus says, "every one that asketh receiveth." — Oswald Chambers

If we think of prayer as the breath of our lungs and the blood from our hearts, we think rightly. The blood flows and the breathing continues - we are not conscious of it but it is always going on. — Oswald Chambers

Pray because you have a Father, not because it quietens you, and give Him time to answer. — Oswald Chambers

We think of prayer as a preparation for work, or a calm after having done work, whereas prayer is the essential work. — Oswald Chambers

Prayer is God's answer to our poverty, not a power we exercise to obtain an answer. — Oswald Chambers

God brings you to places, among people, and into certain conditions to accomplish a definite purpose through the intercession of the Spirit in you. Your part in intercessory prayer is not to agonize over how to intercede, but to use the everyday circumstances and people God puts around you by His providence to bring them before His throne, and to allow the Spirit in you the opportunity to intercede for them. In this way God is going to touch the whole world with His saints. — Oswald Chambers

We look upon prayer simply as a means of getting things for ourselves, but the biblical purpose of prayer is that we may get to know God Himself. — Oswald Chambers

Only one in a thousand sits down in the midst of it all and says - I will watch my Father mend this. God must not be treated as a hospital for our broken "toys," but as our Father. — Oswald Chambers

The greatest answer to prayer is that I am brought into a perfect understanding with God, and that alters my view of actual things. — Oswald Chambers

Our Lord never referred to unanswered prayer; he taught that prayers are always answered. He ever implied that prayers were answered rightly because of the Heavenly Father's wisdom. — Oswald Chambers

One of the most subtle burdens God ever puts on us as saints is this burden of discernment concerning other souls. He reveals things in order that we may take the burden of these souls before Him and form the mind of Christ about them. It is not that we bring God into touch with our minds, but that we rouse ourselves until God is able to convey His mind to us about the one for whom we intercede. — Oswald Chambers

Prayer is not a preparation for work, it IS work. Prayer is not a preparation for the battle, it IS the battle. Prayer is two-fold: definite asking and definite waiting to receive. — Oswald Chambers

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

Prayer is not an exercise, it is the life of the saint. Beware of anything that stops the offering up of prayer. — Oswald Chambers

When we pray "in the Name of Jesus" the answers are in accordance with His nature, and if we think our prayers are unanswered it is because we are not interpreting the answer along this line. — Oswald Chambers

See that you do not use the trick of prayer to cover up what you know you ought to do. — Oswald Chambers

To say that 'prayer changes things' is not as close to the truth as saying, 'prayer changes me and then I change things.' God has established things so that prayer, on the basis of redemption, changes the way a person looks at things. — Oswald Chambers

Prayer is the supreme activity of all that is noblest in our personality, and the essential nature of prayer is faith. — Oswald Chambers

The men with God's 'go' in them have these three characteristics-a saving experience, the evidence of supernatural power at work, and the spiritual efficacy of success in prayer. — Oswald Chambers

Don't forget to pray today because God did not forget to wake you up this morning. — Oswald Chambers

The circumstances of a saint's life are ordained of God. In the life of a saint there is no such thing as chance. God by His providence brings you into circumstances that you can't understand at all, but the Spirit of God understands. God brings you to places, among people, and into certain conditions to accomplish a definite purpose through the intercession of the Spirit in you. Never put yourself in front of your circumstances and say, "I'm going to be my own providence here; I will watch this closely, or protect myself from that." All your circumstances are in the hand of God, and therefore you don't ever have to think they are unnatural or unique. Your part in intercessory prayer is not to agonize over how to intercede, but to use the everyday circumstances and people God puts around you by His providence to bring them before His throne, and to allow the Spirit in you the opportunity to intercede for them. — Oswald Chambers

Prayer is simple, prayer is supernatural, and to anyone not related to our Lord Jesus Christ, prayer is apt to look stupid. — Oswald Chambers

Do you realize that after eminent success in God's work, there is more need for prayer than when we are at the foothills of a struggle for survival? The moments of victory and success are more dangerous than moments of darkness and depression. — Oswald Chambers

The battle of prayer is against two things in the earthlies: wandering thoughts and lack of intimacy with God's character as revealed in His word. Neither can be cured at once, but they can be cured by discipline. — Oswald Chambers

The inattentive, slovenly way we drift into the presence of God is an indication that we are not bothering to think about Him. Whenever our Lord spoke of prayer, He said, "Ask." It is impossible to ask if you do not concentrate. — Oswald Chambers

Never say you will pray about a thing; pray about it. — Oswald Chambers

Ask God for what you want, but you cannot ask if you are not asking for a right thing. When you draw near to God, you cease from asking for things."Your Father knows what things you have need of, before you ask him." Then, why ask? That you may get to know Him. — Oswald Chambers

Your god may be your little Christian habit - the habit of prayer or Bible reading at certain times of your day. Watch how your Father will upset your schedule if you begin to worship your habit instead of what the habit symbolizes. We say, 'I can't do that right now; this is my time alone with God.' No, this is your time alone with your habit. — Oswald Chambers

PRAYER THOUGHT: To You I cling, Lord Jesus. You are my only hope of salvation. — Oswald Chambers

God's "nothings" are His most positive answers. We have to stay on God and wait. Never try to help God to fulfill His word. — Oswald Chambers

Watch your motive before God; have no other motive in prayer than to know Him. — Oswald Chambers

The whole idea of the prayers of the saints is that God's holiness, God's purpose, God's ways may be brought about irrespective of who comes or goes. — Oswald Chambers

There is nothing thrilling about a laboring person's work, but it is the laboring person who makes the ideas of the genius possible. And it is the laboring saint who makes the ideas of his Master possible. When you labor at prayer, from God's perspective there are always results. What an astonishment it will be to see, once the veil is finally lifted, all the souls that have been reaped by you, simply because you have been in the habit of taking your orders from Jesus Christ. — Oswald Chambers

There is no need to get to a place of prayer; pray wherever you are. — Oswald Chambers

God's silences are His answers. If we only take as answers those that are visible to our senses, we are in a very elementary condition of grace. — Oswald Chambers

Prayer is the practice of drawing on the grace of God. Don't say, "I will endure this until I can get away and pray." Pray now - draw on the grace of God in your moment of need. Prayer is the most normal and useful thing; it is not simply a reflex action of your devotion to God. We are very slow to learn to draw on God's grace through prayer. — Oswald Chambers

Prayer is the exercise of drawing on the grace of God. — Oswald Chambers

Prayer imparts the power to walk and not faint. — Oswald Chambers

The reason many of us leave off praying and become hard towards God is because we have only a sentimental interest in prayer. — Oswald Chambers

Our prayers are heard, not because we are in earnest, not because we suffer, but because Jesus suffered. — Oswald Chambers

We pray pious blether, our will is not in it, and then we say God does not answer; we never asked Him for anything. Asking means that our wills are in what we ask. — Oswald Chambers

What a blessed habit I have found my prayer list, morning by morning, it takes me via the Throne of all Grace straight to the intimate personal heart of each one mentioned here, and I know that He Who is not prescribed by time and geography answers immediately. — Oswald Chambers

Your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask Him. Then why ask? The idea of prayer is not in order to get answers from God; prayer is perfect and complete oneness with God. If we pray because we want answers, we will get huffed with God. The answers come every time, but not always in the way we expect, and our spiritual huff shows a refusal to identify ourselves with our Lord in prayer; we are here to be living monuments of God's grace. — Oswald Chambers

The prayer of the feeblest saint who lives in the Spirit and keeps right with God is a terror to Satan. The very powers of darkness are paralyzed by prayer; no spiritualistic seance can succeed in the presence of a humble praying saint. No wonder Satan tries to keep our minds fussy in active work till we cannot think in prayer. — Oswald Chambers

We do not pray at all until we are at our wits' end. — Oswald Chambers

PRAYER THOUGHT: Through Your mercy and grace, Lord, I truly and completely yield myself to You. — Oswald Chambers

When prayer seems to be unanswered, beware of trying to place the blame on someone else. That is always a trap of Satan. When you seem to have no answer, there is always a reason - God uses these times to give you deep personal instruction, and it is not for anyone else but you. — Oswald Chambers

The test is the sixty seconds of every minute, and the sixty minutes of every hour, not our times of prayer and devotional meetings. — Oswald Chambers

Intercessory prayer for one who is sinning prevails. God says so! The will of the man prayed for does not come into question at all, he is connected with God by prayer, and prayer on the basis of the Redemption sets the connection working and God gives life. — Oswald Chambers

Our understanding of God is the answer to prayer; getting things from God is God's indulgence of us. When God stops giving us things, He brings us into the place where we can begin to understand Him. — Oswald Chambers

Prayer is often a temptation to bank on a miracle of God instead of on a moral issue, i.e., it is much easier to ask God to do my work than it is to do it myself. Until we are disciplined properly, we will always be inclined to bank on God's miracles and refuse to do the moral thing ourselves. It is our job, and it will never be done unless we do it. — Oswald Chambers

Some of the qualities of # God must
be merged into us before our
# prayers can be fit for His
acceptance. — Oswald Chambers

Spiritual lust
'I must have it at once'
causes me to demand an answer from God, instead of seeking God himself who gives the answer. Is today 'the third day' and He has still not done what I expected? Whenever we insist that God should give us an answer to prayer we are off track. The purpose of prayer is that we get a hold of God, not of the answer. — Oswald Chambers

One of the reasons of stultification in prayer is that there is no imagination, no power of putting ourselves deliberately before God. — Oswald Chambers

Prayer is an effort of will. — Oswald Chambers

Worship and intercession must go together, the one is impossible without the other. Intercession means that we rouse ourselves up to get the mind of Christ about the one for whom we pray. — Oswald Chambers

It is by no haphazard chance that in every age men have risen early to pray. The first thing that marks decline in spiritual life is our relationship to the early morning. — Oswald Chambers

When we lose sight of God we become hard and dogmatic. We hurl our own petitions at God's throne and dictate to Him as to what we wish Him to do. We do not worship God, nor do we seek to form the mind of Christ. If we are hard towards God, we will become hard towards other people. — Oswald Chambers

say that "prayer changes things" is not as close to the truth as saying, "Prayer changes me and then I change things." God has established things so that prayer, on the basis of redemption, changes the way a person looks at things. Prayer is not a matter of changing things externally, but one of working miracles in a person's inner nature. — Oswald Chambers

Can a sinner be turned into a saint? Can a twisted life be made right? There is only one appropriate answer - "O Lord God, You know" (37:3). Never forge ahead with your religious common sense and say, "Oh, yes, with just a little more Bible reading, devotional time, and prayer, I see how it can be done. — Oswald Chambers

We have to pray with our eyes on God, not on the difficulties. — Oswald Chambers

Prayer is the way the life of God is nourished. — Oswald Chambers

If God sees that my spiritual life will be furthered by giving the things for which I ask, then He will give them, but that is not the end of prayer. The end of prayer is that I come to know God Himself. — Oswald Chambers

There is nothing to be valued more highly than to have people praying for us; God links up His power in answer to their prayers. — Oswald Chambers

Worshipping God is the great essential of fitness. If you have not been worshipping ... when you get to work you will not only be useless yourself, but a tremendous hindrance to those who are associated with you. — Oswald Chambers

God answers prayer on the ground of Redemption and on no other ground. — Oswald Chambers

Jesus Christ carries on intercession for us in heaven; the Holy Ghost carries on intercession in us on earth; and we the saints have to carry on intercession for all men. — Oswald Chambers

The prayer of the saints is never self-important, but always God-important. — Oswald Chambers

Prayer does not fit us for the greater work; prayer is the greater work. — Oswald Chambers

To live a distant, withdrawn, and secluded life is diametrically opposed to spirituality as Jesus Christ taught it. The true test of our spirituality occurs when we come up against injustice, degradation, ingratitude, and turmoil, all of which have the tendency to make us spiritually lazy. While being tested, we want to use prayer and Bible reading for the purpose of finding a quiet retreat. We use God only for the sake of getting peace and joy. We seek only our enjoyment of Jesus Christ, not a true realization of Him. This is the first step in the wrong direction. All these things we are seeking are simply effects, and yet we try to make them causes. — Oswald Chambers

If we think of prayer as the breath in our lungs and the blood from our hearts, we think rightly. The blood flows ceaselessly, and breathing continues ceaselessly; we are not conscious of it, but it is always going on. We are not always conscious of Jesus keeping us in perfect joint with God, but if we are obeying Him, He always is. Prayer is not an exercise, it is the life. — Oswald Chambers

If we rely on the Holy Spirit, we shall find that our prayers become more and more inarticulate; and when they are inarticulate, reverence grows deeper and deeper. — Oswald Chambers

Prayer does not equip us for greater works - prayer is the greater work. — Oswald Chambers

Prayer is simple, as simple as a child making known its wants to it parents. — Oswald Chambers

Some prayers are followed by silence (from God) because they are wrong, others because they are bigger than one can understand. It will be a wonderful moment for some of us when we stand before God and find that the prayers we clamored for in early days and imagined were never answered, have been answered in the most amazing way, and that God's silence has been the sign of the answer. — Oswald Chambers

We pray when there's nothing else we can do, but God wants us to pray before we do anything at all. — Oswald Chambers

The whole meaning of prayer is that we may know God. — Oswald Chambers

Get into the habit of dealing with God about everything. Unless in the first waking moment of the day you learn to fling the door wide back and let God in, you will work on a wrong level all day; but swing the door wide open and pray to your Father in secret, and every public thing will be stamped with the presence of God. — Oswald Chambers

It is impossible to live the life of a disciple without definite times of secret prayer. You will find that the place to enter in is in your business, as you walk along the streets, in the ordinary ways of life, when no one dreams you are praying, and the reward comes openly, a revival here, a blessing there. — Oswald Chambers

We impoverish God in our minds when we say there must be answers to our prayers on the material plane; the biggest answers to our prayers are in the realm of the unseen. — Oswald Chambers

The real business of your life as a saved soul is intercessory prayer. Wherever God puts you in circumstances, pray immediately, pray that His Atonement may be realised in other lives as it has been in yours. Pray for your friends now; pray for those with whom you come in contact now. — Oswald Chambers

Prayer is the answer to every problem there is. — Oswald Chambers