During the days of Jesus' life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him .... (Hebrews 5:7-8, NIV)
Now I beg you, brethren, through the Lord Jesus Christ, and through the love of the Spirit, that you strive together with me in your prayers to God for me. (Romans 15:30 NKJV)
Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ, greets you, always laboring fervently for you in prayers, that you may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God. (Colossians 4:12 NKJV)
The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. (James 5:16 NKJV)
It is nothing short of tragic that so much of the church today is either too passive or too preoccupied to study the nature of intercessory prayer and make the necessary commitment for the unleashing of its glorious power. Frank Laubach believed prayer to be the greatest force in the universe available to man. John Wesley believed that God does nothing except by prayer. When Andrew Murray was asked why so many Christian ministers and workers had so little influence in their communities and over the world, he answered, "Nothing but the sin of prayerlessness is the cause of the lack of spiritual life." Leonard Ravenhill wrote, "The Cinderella of the church today is the prayer meeting. This handmaid of the Lord is unloved and unwooed because she is not dripping with the pearls of intellectualism, nor glamorous with the silks of philosophy; neither is she enchanting with the tiara of psychology. She wears the homespuns of sincerity and humility and so is not afraid to kneel!" E. M. Bounds wrote, "Prayer is humbling work. It abases the pride of intellect, crucifies vainglory, and signs our spiritual bankruptcy, and all these are hard for flesh and blood to bear. It is easier not to pray than to bear them. So we come to the crying evils of these times, maybe of all times -- little or no praying. Of the two evils, perhaps little praying is worse than no praying. Little praying is a kind of make-believe, a salve for the conscience, a farce and a delusion."
