Our prayer motivator verse from the Word of God today is Matthew 7:7 which reads: “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.”

Allow me to share with you some important points regarding this verse from Matthew Henry’s Commentary:

Our Saviour, in the foregoing chapter, had spoken of prayer as a commanded duty, by which God is honoured, and which, if done aright, shall be rewarded; here he speaks of it as the appointed means of obtaining what we need, especially grace to obey the precepts he had given, some of which are so displeasing to flesh and blood. Here is a precept in three words to the same purport, Ask, Seek, Knock; that is, in one word, “Pray; pray often; pray with sincerity and seriousness; pray, and pray again; make conscience of prayer, and be constant in it; make a business of prayer, and be earnest in it. Ask, as a beggar asks alms.’’ Those that would be rich in grace, must betake themselves to the poor trade of begging, and they shall find it a thriving trade. “Ask; represent your wants and burdens to God, and refer yourselves to him for support and supply, according to his promise. Ask as a traveller asks the way; to pray is to enquire of God.

We will discuss this verse further in the next broadcast.

Our prayer motivator quote today is from Jerry Bridges. He said: “It is hypocritical to pray for victory over our sins yet be careless in our intake of the Word of God.”

Our prayer motivator devotional today is part 1 of a new series titled “JUST PRAY” from Dr. John R. Rice.

All conditions of prayer in the Bible are extra encouragements and opportunities to pray. All prayers are fulfilled in asking.

Do you want something from God? Then pray! Prayer gets things from God, and the one great condition of getting things is asking for them.

Some Scriptures give special promises for those who ask in faith. Others mention that we can get anything we want if we ask according to His will. Again we are told that whatsoever we shall ask in Christ’s name, we can have. Then if two are agreed, they can have what they ask. Persistence in prayer is encouraged too; and those who cry day and night to God will be heard speedily.

But all these are enlargements of promise, not limitations. These are promises, not strictures. These are to make prayer easier, not harder. These promises are simply elaborations of the general promises that we can get things just by praying, by asking.

+ Plus, listen to Bart Millard singing “A Little Talk with Jesus”

Our prayer motivator verse from the Word of God today is Luke 6:12 which reads: “And it came to pass in those days, that he [Jesus] went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God.”

Allow me to share with you some important points regarding this verse from Matthew Henry’s Commentary:

Jesus was long alone with God: He continued all night in prayer. We think one half hour a great deal to spend in the duties of the closet; but Christ continued a whole night in meditation and secret prayer. We have a great deal of business at the throne of grace, and we should take a great delight in communion with God, and by both these we may be kept sometimes long at prayer. In his family we have him nominating his immediate attendants, that should be the constant auditors of his doctrine and eye-witnesses of his miracles, that hereafter they might be sent forth as apostles, his messengers to the world, to preach his gospel to it, and plant his church in it. After he had continued all night in prayer, one would have thought that, when it was day, he should have reposed himself, and got some sleep. No, as soon as any body was stirring, he called unto him his disciples. In serving God, our great care should be, not to lose time, but to make the end of one good duty the beginning of another. Ministers are to be ordained with prayer more than ordinarily solemn.

Our prayer motivator quote today is from Herbert Lockyer. He said: “The mightiest prayers are often those drenched with the Word of God.”

Our prayer motivator devotional today is the eighteenth and final part of our series titled “HOW TO EXERCISE YOUR FAITH AND GROW GREATER FAITH IN GOD” from Dr. John R. Rice.

In conclusion of this series, I hope that you are not complacent nor content with your unbelief. I trust there is a hunger of heart to know God better and to see Him work wonders in your life.

Well, the first thing to do is to confess the sin of unbelief. Without faith you cannot please God. Not to have it is failure and rebellion. Unbelief is a wicked sin. Faith can get anything in the universe, without nothing impossible. Admit to God how far short you have fallen of asking or expecting what you would have a right to pray for. Uncover the barrenness of your life, the coldness of your heart, the powerlessness of your testimony before God!

If you are a pastor, count out before God the pitifully small results of your ministry. If you are an evangelist, compare yourself with Finney, Moody, Torrey, Chapman, Sunday, and with Bible preachers, and admit to God that unbelief is the cause of the fruitlessness.

Unbelief has lost the power of God. Oh, may God help my own heart to take this lesson in penitence and confession today on account of my unbelief, my littleness of faith!

+ Plus, listen to Steven Curtis Chapman singing “Let Us Pray”

Our prayer motivator verse from the Word of God today is Luke 6:12 which reads: “And it came to pass in those days, that he [Jesus] went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God.”

Allow me to share with you some important points regarding this verse from Matthew Henry’s Commentary:

In these verses, we have our Lord Jesus in secret, in his family, and in public; and in all three acting like himself. In secret we have him praying to God. The evangelist takes frequent notice of Christ’s retirements, to give us an example of secret prayer, by which we must keep up our communion with God daily, and without which it is impossible that the soul should prosper. In those days, when his enemies were filled with madness against him, and were contriving what to do to him, he went out to pray; that he might answer the type of David, “For my love, they are my adversaries; but I give myself unto prayer.” Observe that He was alone with God; he went out into a mountain, to pray, where he might have no disturbance or interruption given him; we are never less alone than when we are thus alone. Whether there was any convenient place built upon this mountain, for devout people to retire to for their private devotions, as some think, and that that oratory, or place of prayer, to me seems very uncertain. He went into a mountain for privacy, and therefore, probably, would not go to a place frequented by others.

We will discuss this verse further in tomorrow’s broadcast.

Our prayer motivator quote today is from Thomas Watson. He said: “God will fill the hungry because He Himself has stirred up the hunger. As in the case of prayer, when God prepares the heart to pray, He prepares His ear to hear. So in the case of spiritual hunger, when God prepares the heart to hunger, He will prepare His hand to fill.”

Our prayer motivator devotional today is part 17 of our series titled “HOW TO EXERCISE YOUR FAITH AND GROW GREATER FAITH IN GOD” from Dr. John R. Rice.

A father brought his poor devil-possessed boy to the disciples while Jesus was on the Mount of Transfiguration, and they could not heal him. Almost in despair the father brought the boy to Jesus and said in Mark 9:22-24, “If thou canst do any thing, have compassion on us, and help us.” Jesus replied, “If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.” Then the father, so conscious of his unbelief, cried out, “Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.” The father had a little faith, and he prayed for more faith.

Jesus did help his unbelief. Jesus wonderfully healed the afflicted son, and that day the father went home, I am sure, with abounding, triumphant faith in a Saviour who worked miracles in answer to prayer. He had seen the miracle. The evidence of the marvel walked down the road beside him on the way home!

And so we ought to pray, “Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief!”

+ Plus, listen to Tobymac singing “City On Our Knees”

Our prayer motivator verse from the Word of God today is Luke 18:1 which reads: “And he [Jesus] spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint.”

Allow me to share with you some important points regarding this verse from Matthew Henry’s Commentary:

This parable has its key hanging at the door; the drift and design of it are prefixed. Christ spoke it with this intent, to teach us that men ought always to pray and not to faint. It supposes that all God’s people are praying people; all God’s children keep up both a constant and an occasional correspondence with him, send to him statedly, and upon every emergency. It is our privilege and honour that we may pray. It is our duty; we ought to pray, we sin if we neglect it. It is to be our constant work; we ought always to pray, it is that which the duty of every day requires. We must pray, and never grow weary of praying, nor think of leaving it off till it comes to be swallowed up in everlasting praise. But that which seems particularly designed here is to teach us constancy and perseverance in our requests for some spiritual mercies that we are in pursuit of, relating either to ourselves or to the church of God. When we are praying for strength against our spiritual enemies, our lusts and corruptions, which are our worst enemies, we must continue instant in prayer, must pray and not faint, for we shall not seek God’s face in vain. So we must likewise in our prayers for the deliverance of the people of God out of the hands of their persecutors and oppressors.

Our prayer motivator quote today is from Phillips Brooks. He said: “Every true prayer has its background and its foreground. The foreground of prayer is the intense, immediate desire for a certain blessing which seems to be absolutely necessary for the soul to have; the background of prayer is the quiet, earnest desire that the will of God, whatever it may be, should be done. What a picture is the perfect prayer of Jesus in Gethsemane! In front burns the strong desire to escape death and to live; but behind there stands, calm and strong, the craving of the whole life for the doing of the will of God… Leave out the foreground, let there be no expression of the will of him who prays, and there is left a pure submission which is almost fatalism. Leave out the background, let there be no acceptance of the will of God, and the prayer is only an expression of self-will, a petulant claiming of the uncorrected choice of him who prays. Only when the two are there together, the special desire resting on the universal submission, the universal submission opening into the special desire is the picture perfect and the prayer complete.”

Our prayer motivator devotional today is part 16 of our series titled “HOW TO EXERCISE YOUR FAITH AND GROW GREATER FAITH IN GOD” from Dr. John R. Rice.

Faith comes by asking for it. If you want more faith, then ask God for it. Several Scriptures make it clear that we have a right to pray for faith and that God gives faith in answer to sincere prayer.

Romans 12:3 warns us not to think of ourselves more highly than we ought to think, “but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.” Faith, then, is a gift of God.

In 1 Corinthians 12:9 we are told that faith is given by the same Holy Spirit who gives wisdom and knowledge and the gifts of healing and miracles, of prophecy and other such gifts. Faith is a gift of God. Then we have the same right to pray for that as we have to pray for knowledge and wisdom and for other good things. It is in the same passage mentioned as a manifestation of the Spirit. And 1 Corinthians, chapter 12, closes with the exhortation, “But covet earnestly the best gifts.” Christians ought to want and ask God for faith.

Jesus said in Matthew 7:11, “If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?” Jesus invites us to ask the Father for all good things. Faith is a good thing and is certainly within the province of prayer.

In daily contrast to the victorious life of Jesus, the disciples felt their utter lack of faith, so they came to Jesus prayerfully and said in Luke 17:5, “Increase our faith.” They prayed for faith. And we may be sure that they got it. It may not have come all of a sudden, without any intermediate experiences. It is likely that in answer to the prayer, Christ made their hearts sensitive to His words and helped them through their listening to His Word, and by seeing His marvelous answers to prayer, and by proving Christ and the Heavenly Father many times. Through these things no doubt their faith grew and grew, until they could heal the sick, cast out devils, face mobs, imprisonment and death — all with a smile. Peter even raised the dead by faith. Christ did answer their prayer and increased their faith.

+ Plus, listen to Daniel White Jr. singing “Prayer”

Our prayer motivator verse from the Word of God today is 1 Peter 4:7 which reads: “But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer.”

Allow me to share with you some important points regarding this verse from Matthew Henry’s Commentary:

We have here an awful position or doctrine, and an inference drawn from it. The position is that the end of all things is at hand. The miserable destruction of the Jewish church and nation foretold by our Saviour is now very near; consequently, the time of their persecution and your sufferings is but very short. Your own life and that of your enemies will soon come to their utmost period. Nay, the world itself will not continue very long. The conflagration will put an end to it; and all things must be swallowed up in an endless eternity. The inference from this comprises a series of exhortations. First, to sobriety and watchfulness: “Be you therefore sober.” Let the frame and temper of your minds be grave, stayed, and solid; and observe strict temperance and sobriety in the use of all worldly enjoyments. Do not suffer yourselves to be caught with your former sins and temptations. Second, watch unto prayer. Take care that you be continually in a calm sober disposition, fit for prayer; and that you be frequent in prayers, lest this end come upon you unawares. We learn the consideration of our approaching end is a powerful argument to make us sober in all worldly matters, and earnest in religious affairs. Those who would pray to purpose must watch unto prayer. They must watch over their own spirits, watch all fit opportunities, and do their duty in the best manner they can.

Our prayer motivator quote today is from William Gurnall. He said: “Pray often rather than very long at a time. It is hard to be very long in prayer, and not slacken in our affections.”

Our prayer motivator devotional today is part 15 of our series titled “HOW TO EXERCISE YOUR FAITH AND GROW GREATER FAITH IN GOD” from Dr. John R. Rice.

Allow me to tell you about a time when I knelt under a chapparel bush as a lad before I rode off to college. Years later, in 1926, I gave up a happy pastorate, with a regular salary and a nicely furnished parsonage. The church had doubled its membership; we had built a nice new building; we had had hundreds saved. People wanted me to stay, but I felt God calling me to go out into the white harvest field of evangelism.

I made a solemn covenant with God: “Lord, You look after my business and I will look after Yours. I will give up all regular salary and not look to man but will look to You. I will give up my $10,000 government insurance. I promise You not to fret about daily bread. I believe You will supply all my needs and I here and now lay myself on the altar to go anywhere You say, to do what You tell me, and to risk You to care for me and my family.”

Praise His name, God has kept His part of that bargain. He has kept my growing family and supplied all our needs. He has provided for enormous printing bills, a heavy staff, and a weekly nationwide radio broadcast. God has provided for our needs bountifully, and we have lived a life of resting in God’s faithfulness. I know a lot more about God than I did when I entered into that covenant. My faith is much stronger.

Your faith, too, will grow, if you really take God up on His proposition, if you try Him on His promises, and promise to prove His faithfulness!

+ Plus, listen to the Katinas singing “Praying for You”