A Call to Prayer

J. C. Ryle wrote a booklet over 150 years ago that rings with a question that haunts me: Do you pray? It is powerful and convicting. My problem is that I so often am impacted by a book for a brief time and then forget it. I publish this post with the hope that I will not soon forget what this man has taught me about prayer. Here are some quotes that have have impacted me greatly.

"What is the reason that some believers are so much brighter and holier than others? I believe the difference, in nineteen cases out of twenty, arises from different habits about private prayer. I believe that those who are not eminently holy pray little, and those who are eminently holy pray much."

"Look through the lives of the brightest and best of God's servants, whether in the Bible or not. See what is written of Moses and David and Daniel and Paul. Mark what is recorded of Luther and Bradford the Reformers. Observe what is related of the private devotions of Whitefield and Cecil and Venn and Bickersteth and M'Cheyne. Tell me of one of all the goodly fellowship of saints and martyrs, who has not had this mark most prominently - he was a man of prayer. Depend upon it, prayer is power."

"Tell me what a man's prayers are, and I will soon tell you the state of his soul. Prayer is the spiritual pulse. By this the spiritual health may be tested. Prayer is the spiritual weatherglass. By this we may know whether it is fair or foul with our hearts. Oh, let us keep an eye continually upon our private devotions. Here is the pith and marrow of our practical Christianity. Sermons and books and tracts, and committee meetings and the company of good men, are all good in their way, but they will never make up for the neglect of private prayer."

"He loves me best who loves me in his prayers."