James 5:16

I would seek unto God, and unto God would I commit my cause.

Is anything too hard for the Lord ?—Commit thy way unto the Lord ; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass.—Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God.—Casting all your care upon him, for he careth for you.

Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him.

And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up.

Ye that are the Lord 's remembrancers, keep not silence.

Thou . . . hast made us unto our God kings and priests.—The sons of Aaron, the priests, shall blow with the trumpets; and they shall be to you for an ordinance for ever throughout your generations.

Abraham answered and said, Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord, which am but dust and ashes: peradventure there shall lack five of the fifty righteous: wilt thou destroy all city for lack of five? And he said, If I find there forty and five, I will not destroy it.

Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.—Pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.

Abraham answered and said, Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord, which am but dust and ashes: peradventure there shall lack five of the fifty righteous: wilt thou destroy all city for lack of five? And he said, If I find there forty and five, I will not destroy it.

Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.—Pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.

As an encouragement cheerfully to offer intercessory prayer, remember that such prayer is the sweetest God ever hears, for the prayer of Christ is of this character.

In all the incense which our Great High Priest now puts into the golden censer, there is not a single grain for Himself.

There is no doubt that it is by praying that we learn to pray, and that the more we pray, the better our prayers will be. People who pray in spurts are never likely to attain to the kind of prayer described in the Scriptures as “powerful and effective” (James 5:16).

Great power in prayer is within our reach, but we must work to obtain it. We should never even imagine that Abraham could have interceded so successfully for Sodom if he had not communed with God throughout the previous years of his life. Jacob’s entire night of wrestling at Peniel was certainly not the first encounter he had with his God. And we can even look at our Lord’s most beautiful and wonderful prayer in John 17, before His suffering and death, as the fruit of His many nights of devotion, and of His rising often before daybreak to pray.