PRAYER
"Prayer is an offering up of our desires unto God, for things agreeable to His Will, in the Name of Christ, with confession of our sins, and thankful acknowledgement of His mercies."
---Westminster Shorter Catechism [#98]
"Prayer is a part of the Christian's armor against satanic attack (Eph.6:18), the effective ministry of the Word of God depends on the prayers of God's people (v. 18-19), and the Christian is encouraged to pray for all sorts of things, with thanksgiving (Phil 4:6), and so to be free from anxiety."---Tyndale Bible Dictionary
"Prayer is a sincere, sensible, affectionate pouring out of the heart or soul to God, through Christ, in the strength and assistance of the Holy Spirit, for such things as God has promised, or according to His Word, for the good of the church, with submission in faith to the will of God."---John Bunyan
"Prayer is the soul's sincere desire, Unuttered or expressed;
The motion of a hidden fire That trembles in the breast.
O Thou, by Whom we come to God, the Life, the Truth, the Way;
The path of prayer Thyself hast trod; Lord, teach us how to pray!"
---James Montgomery
"Prayer crowns God with the honor and glory due to His Name, and God crowns prayer with assurance and comfort." ---Thomas Brooks
"Even the most devout seem to think they must storm heaven with loud outcries and mighty bellowings or their prayers are of no avail."--- A. W. Tozer
"Grant, Almighty God, that since under the guidance of thy Son we have been united together in the body of thy Church, which has been so often scattered and torn asunder, O grant that we may continue in the unity of faith, and perseveringly fight against all the temptations of this world, and never deviate from the right course, whatever new troubles may daily arise; and though we are exposed to many deaths, let us not be seized with fear, such as may extinguish in our hears every hope; but may we, on the contrary, learn to raise up our eyes and minds and all our thoughts to thy great power, by which thou quickenest the dead, and raisest from nothing things which are not, so that, though we be daily exposed to ruin, our souls may ever aspire to eternal salvation, until thou at length really showest thyself to be the fountain of life, when we shall enjoy that endless felicity which has been obtained for us by the blood of thine only begotten Son our Lord. Amen."---John Calvin
"We ought to contemplate providence not as curious and fickle persons are wont to do but as a ground of confidence and excitement to prayer. When he informs us that the hairs of our head are all numbered it is not to encourage trivial speculations but to instruct us to depend on the fatherly care of God which is exercised over these frail bodies.” ---John Calvin
"Do not pray for easy lives, Pray to be stronger men. Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers, Pray for powers equal to your task."--- Phillips Brooks
"God is perfect love and perfect wisdom. We do not pray in order to change his will, but to bring our wills into harmony with his."--- William Temple
"The whole of public worship should be approached and conducted in a spirit of prayer, whether singing, reciting Psalms, reading and hearing the Word, making offerings, and receiving the sacraments and benedictions."
---ARP Directory of Public Worship
"Prayer, without fervor, stakes nothing on the issue, because it has nothing to stake. It comes with empty hands. Hands which are listless, as well as empty; which have never learned the lesson of clinging to the Cross. Fervorless prayer has no heart in it; it is an unfit vessel. Heart, soul, and life, must find place in all real praying. Prayers must be red hot! Coldness of spirit hinders praying; prayer cannot live in a wintry atmosphere. By flame, prayer ascends to heaven. Yet fire is not heat, nor noise. Heat is intensity. To be absorbed in Gods will, to be so greatly in earnest about doing it that our whole being takes fire, is the qualifying condition of the man who would engage in effectual prayer.
It is not in our power, perhaps, to create fervency of spirit at will, but we can pray God to implant it. It is ours, then, to nourish and cherish it, to guard it against extinction, to prevent its decline. It is never out of place to pray God to beget within us, and to keep alive the spirit of fervent prayer. Those who are fervent in spirit are bent on attaining to righteousness, truth, grace, and all other sublime and powerful graces which adorn the character of the authentic, unquestioned child of God." --- E.M. Bounds
"Prayer is the nearest approach to God, and the highest enjoyment of Him, that we are capable of in this life."---William Law
"When we feel least like praying is the time when we most need to pray. We should wait quietly before God and tell Him how cold and prayerless our hearts are, and look up to Him and trust Him and expect Him to send the Holy Spirit to warm our hearts and draw them out in prayer. It will not be long before the glow of the Spirit's presence will fill our hearts, and we will begin to pray with freedom, directness, and power."---R.A.Torrey
"Take these hands and lift them up For I have not the strength to praise You near enough. I have nothing without You.
Take my voice and pour it out Let it sing the songs of mercy I have found. I have nothing without You.
All my soul needs is all your love to cover me So that the world will see That I have nothing without you.
Take my body and build it up May it be broken as an offering of love.
Take my time here on this earth. Let it glorify all that You are worth.
For I have nothing, I am nothing without You." ---Bebo Norman
“Prayer does not fit us for the greater work; prayer is the greater work.” ---Oswald Chambers
“How to pray — 1. Recite a few verses of the Bible before you pray. Much of the language of Scripture is in the form of prayer, and by using it we find help in our approches to God. 2. Always go to God with faith in Jesus Christ. In His name you may ask for every blessing; and through His merits, and for His sake, you may find all that can make you happy in this world, with a pardon of your sins, and a good hope of heaven. 3. Seek for the aid of the Holy Spirit, for He will show us what we need, help our weakness, put right desires into our hearts, and teach us how to pray aright. 4. Have something to say to God. Do not say words in an unmeaningful way. Spend a few minutes in thought before you begin to pray, that you may not “mock God with a solemn sound.” 5. Leave the answer to the love and wisdom of God. He will give to us those things which it is best for us to receive.” ---- The Biblical Illustrator
"We are here through Jesus Christ to offer up a sacrifice of praise to you, which we desire to do continually, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge your name. And you have said that he who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies you, and that this will please the LORD more than an ox or a bull with horns and hoofs. We will recount the steadfast love of the LORD, the praises of the LORD, according to all that the LORD has granted us, and the great goodness to the house of Israel that he has granted them according to his compassion, according to the abundance of his steadfast love."
---Matthew Henry (Click here for more of Matthew Henry's Method of Prayer)
"God, our Father in heaven, forgive us for being such reluctant pilgrims, little in almost everything but sin.
Our faith is little, for we pray too often about either trivialities or generalities; we are cautious of turning the specifics over to Thee and Thy mercy.
Our service is little, for we are quick with excuses. We are far more likely to say, 'No, not me', or 'I don't have the time', than we are to reply, 'Yes, Lord, I'll do it'. And this while we call ourselves followers of the Christ Who served all the way from Bethlehem to Calvary.
Our love is little, for we dole it out carefully, as though it were a limited and irreplaceable commodity, rather than a yeasty catalyst which grows only as it is given.
Our strength is little, for we are casual about Thy training rules, forgetful that we have been told, "Train yourself in godliness, for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and the life to come." [1 Tim.4:7b-8]
Forgive us all our littleness, O God. And replace in us the deathless faith, the constant service, the generous love, the tireless strength which befit those who seek to walk in the steps of the Christ Who is the perfect example of each. In His Name we pray. Amen." ---George Bergquist
PRAISE AND THANKFULNESS AND WORSHIP TO GOD:
"Public worship is a holy convocation in which the Triune God meets with and ministers to His assembled covenant people through Word and sacrament, and His people respond with praise, thanksgiving, repentance, confession of sin, supplication, and confession of faith. Therefore, public worship is to be centered on glorifying God, showing forth the worth and excellence of God. It
should be exalting of Christ and empowered by the Spirit."---ARP Directory of Public Worship
"The basis of worship is the covenant relationship whereby God has bound himself to those whom he has saved and claimed." — J.I.Packer
"By day, by night, at home, abroad, Still are we guarded by our God,
By His incessant bounty fed, By His unerring counsel led
In scenes exalted or depressed, Thou art our joy, and Thou our rest;
Thy goodness all our hopes shall raise, Adored thru all our changing days.”
---Philipp Doddridge
"It has seemed to me fit and proper that [the gifts of God] should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged with one heart and one voice by the whole American people. I do, therefore, invite my fellow citizens... to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens."
—Thanksgiving proclamation, 1863. Abraham Lincoln
“The Reformed worship tradition should remind every generation of Christians that the worship of God is the most important of all the Christian’s tasks. That is the primary reason why the Christian should go to church: to worship God. In today’s church climate this is a radical idea." ---Robert Reymond
"Worship is our innermost being responding with praise for all that God is, through our attitudes, actions, thoughts, and words, based on the truth of God as He has revealed Himself." ---John MacArthur
"The true knowledge of God will result, not in our being puffed up with conceit at how knowledgeable we are, but in our falling on our faces before God in sheer wonder and crying, 'O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how unscrutable his ways!' Whenever our knowledge becomes dry or leaves us cold, something has gone wrong." --- John R. W. Stott
"Forgive, O Lord and heal our land
And give us eyes to seek Your face and hearts to understand
That You alone make all things new
And the blessings of the land we love are really gifts from You."
---Michael Card, from 'Heal our Land'
"Great art Thou, O Lord, and greatly to be praised; great is Thy power, and Thy wisdom infinite. And Thee would man praise; man, but a particle of Thy creation; man, that bears about him his mortality, the witness of his sin, the witness that Thou resistest the proud: Yet would man praise Thee; he, but a particle of Thy creation. Thou awakest us to delight in Thy praise; for Thou madest us for Thyself, and our heart is restless, until it repose in Thee." ---Augustine, from "Confessions"
"Missions is not the ultimate goal of the Church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn’t. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man. When this age is over, and the countless millions of the redeemed fall on their faces before the throne of God, missions will be no more. It is a temporary necessity. But worship abides forever. Worship, therefore, is the fuel and goal of missions. It’s the goal of missions because in missions we simply aim to bring the nations into the white hot enjoyment of God’s glory. The goal of missions is the gladness of the peoples in the greatness of God." ---John Piper
"Once it was the blessing, Now it is the Lord;
Once it was the feeling, Now it is his Word.
Once his gifts I wanted, Now the Giver own;
Once I sought for healing, Now himself alone"---. Albert Benjamin Simpson
“Every soul belongs to God and exists by his pleasure. God being who and what he is, and we being who and what we are, the only thinkable relation between us is one of full lordship on his part and complete submission on ours. We owe him every honor that it is in our power to give him.”--- A. W. Tozer
"Let us bring what is our own, God will supply the rest."--- Chrysostom
"When the saints assemble for Divine worship, occupied not with their own needs, but with Christ's excellency; coming not to obtain a blessing, but to offer to God a sacrifice of praise; there is then such a gracious revelation of Himself that we are made to exclaim: "This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven." --- Arthur Pink
"Joy and thanksgiving expressed in prayer and praise according to the Word of God are the heart of the Church's worship." ---John Calvin
“When ministry becomes performance, then the sanctuary becomes a theater, the congregation becomes an audience, worship becomes entertainment, and man’s applause and approval become the measure of success. But when ministry is for the glory of God, His Presence moves into the sanctuary.”
---Richard L. Moore
Q. 58. What is required in the fourth commandment?
A. The fourth commandment requireth the keeping holy to
God such set times as he hath appointed in his word; expressly
one whole day in seven, to be a holy sabbath to himself.----Shorter Catechism
"Jesus spoke about the ox in the ditch on the Sabbath. But if your ox gets in the ditch every Sabbath, you should either get rid of the ox or fill up the ditch."---Billy Graham
"Our desperate need of recovering the Sabbath is much more pressing, I believe, than whether or not we do or do not encourage yearly celebrations of the dominical feasts [i.e., Christmas, Circumcision, Good Friday, Easter, Ascension, and Pentecost]. By giving up Sabbath observance for whatever reasons, we have unwittingly contributed to the quicker secularization of our culture, and have in so doing left a deep gap or vacuum in the spirit of both churched and unchurched people for some kind of touch with traditional transcendent realities. If Sabbath observance is of no real consequence to church people, then the world has yet another practical argument for the peripheral nature of God and the transcendent … . And more to our concern here, if we neglect a whole-hearted observance of the Christian Sabbath, the Lord’s Resurrection Day, we do lose something of the transcendent; indeed, we lose a great deal of it in the very church itself.
Why fill in this deep, hurting gap with attempts at resuscitating ever more of the church year? Is there anything wrong with humbling ourselves and repenting of our abuse of the Lord’s Day, and seeking to return to a happy keeping of it? I suspect that would make the currently popular bringing in of church seasons such as Advent and Lent quite superfluous. After all, these seasons were historically closely tied in to the Medieval Penitential System. Who needs them, when hearts and eyes of faith are turned Sabbath by Sabbath to our great High Priest, who through the power of His atoning blood and resurrection, continually presents us to the Father?" ---Douglas Kelly
"To worship is to quicken the conscience to the holiness of God, to feed the mind with the truth of God, to purge the imagination by the beauty of God, to open the heart to the love of God, to devote the will to the purpose of God."---William Temple
"When we have found God good we must not forget to pronounce Him great; and His kind thoughts of us must not at all abate our high thoughts of Him."
---Matthew Henry, Commenting on 1 Tim.1:17.
"Just the word thanksgiving prompts the spirit of humility. Genuine gratitude to God for his mercy, his abundance, his protection, his smile of favor."---Charles R. Swindoll
"We will be compelled to voice our words of praise firmly and precisely, even as our logic screams that God has no idea what he’s doing. Most of the verses written about praise in God’s Word were penned by men and women who faced crushing heartaches, injustice, treachery, slander, and scores of other intolerable situations."--- Joni Eareckson Tada
"Without Thy sunshine and Thy rain
We could not have the golden grain;
Without Thy love we'd not be fed;
We thank Thee for our daily bread." --Anonymous
"Praise is the best auxiliary to prayer. He who most bears in mind what has been done for him by God will be most emboldened to ask for fresh gifts from above."--- Andrew Melville
"‘I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment. It is not out of compliment that lovers keep telling one another how beautiful they are; the delight is incomplete until it is expressed. It’s frustrating to discover a new author and not be able to tell anyone how good he is; to hear a good joke and find no one to share it with. This is so even when our expressions are inadequate, which they usually are. But if one could really and fully praise even such things to perfection, then the object would be fully appreciated. And our delight would have attained perfect development. The worthier the object, the more intense this delight would be. If it were possible for a created soul fully to love and delight in the worthiest object of all, and simultaneously at every moment to give this delight perfect expression, then that soul would be in supreme beatitude. It is along these lines that I find it easiest to understand the Christian doctrine that heaven is a state in which angels and men are perpetually employed in praising God. To see what that doctrine really means, we must suppose ourselves to be in perfect love with God---drowned in that delight which, far from remaining pent up within ourselves, flows out from us incessantly again in effortless and perfect expression, our joy no more separable from the praise in which it utters itself than the brightness of a mirror is separable from the light it sheds."
---C.S.Lewis
"Prayer is an offering up of our desires unto God, for things agreeable to His Will, in the Name of Christ, with confession of our sins, and thankful acknowledgement of His mercies."
---Westminster Shorter Catechism [#98]
"Prayer is a part of the Christian's armor against satanic attack (Eph.6:18), the effective ministry of the Word of God depends on the prayers of God's people (v. 18-19), and the Christian is encouraged to pray for all sorts of things, with thanksgiving (Phil 4:6), and so to be free from anxiety."---Tyndale Bible Dictionary
"Prayer is a sincere, sensible, affectionate pouring out of the heart or soul to God, through Christ, in the strength and assistance of the Holy Spirit, for such things as God has promised, or according to His Word, for the good of the church, with submission in faith to the will of God."---John Bunyan
"Prayer is the soul's sincere desire, Unuttered or expressed;
The motion of a hidden fire That trembles in the breast.
O Thou, by Whom we come to God, the Life, the Truth, the Way;
The path of prayer Thyself hast trod; Lord, teach us how to pray!"
---James Montgomery
"Prayer crowns God with the honor and glory due to His Name, and God crowns prayer with assurance and comfort." ---Thomas Brooks
"Even the most devout seem to think they must storm heaven with loud outcries and mighty bellowings or their prayers are of no avail."--- A. W. Tozer
"Grant, Almighty God, that since under the guidance of thy Son we have been united together in the body of thy Church, which has been so often scattered and torn asunder, O grant that we may continue in the unity of faith, and perseveringly fight against all the temptations of this world, and never deviate from the right course, whatever new troubles may daily arise; and though we are exposed to many deaths, let us not be seized with fear, such as may extinguish in our hears every hope; but may we, on the contrary, learn to raise up our eyes and minds and all our thoughts to thy great power, by which thou quickenest the dead, and raisest from nothing things which are not, so that, though we be daily exposed to ruin, our souls may ever aspire to eternal salvation, until thou at length really showest thyself to be the fountain of life, when we shall enjoy that endless felicity which has been obtained for us by the blood of thine only begotten Son our Lord. Amen."---John Calvin
"We ought to contemplate providence not as curious and fickle persons are wont to do but as a ground of confidence and excitement to prayer. When he informs us that the hairs of our head are all numbered it is not to encourage trivial speculations but to instruct us to depend on the fatherly care of God which is exercised over these frail bodies.” ---John Calvin
"Do not pray for easy lives, Pray to be stronger men. Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers, Pray for powers equal to your task."--- Phillips Brooks
"God is perfect love and perfect wisdom. We do not pray in order to change his will, but to bring our wills into harmony with his."--- William Temple
"The whole of public worship should be approached and conducted in a spirit of prayer, whether singing, reciting Psalms, reading and hearing the Word, making offerings, and receiving the sacraments and benedictions."
---ARP Directory of Public Worship
"Prayer, without fervor, stakes nothing on the issue, because it has nothing to stake. It comes with empty hands. Hands which are listless, as well as empty; which have never learned the lesson of clinging to the Cross. Fervorless prayer has no heart in it; it is an unfit vessel. Heart, soul, and life, must find place in all real praying. Prayers must be red hot! Coldness of spirit hinders praying; prayer cannot live in a wintry atmosphere. By flame, prayer ascends to heaven. Yet fire is not heat, nor noise. Heat is intensity. To be absorbed in Gods will, to be so greatly in earnest about doing it that our whole being takes fire, is the qualifying condition of the man who would engage in effectual prayer.
It is not in our power, perhaps, to create fervency of spirit at will, but we can pray God to implant it. It is ours, then, to nourish and cherish it, to guard it against extinction, to prevent its decline. It is never out of place to pray God to beget within us, and to keep alive the spirit of fervent prayer. Those who are fervent in spirit are bent on attaining to righteousness, truth, grace, and all other sublime and powerful graces which adorn the character of the authentic, unquestioned child of God." --- E.M. Bounds
"Prayer is the nearest approach to God, and the highest enjoyment of Him, that we are capable of in this life."---William Law
"When we feel least like praying is the time when we most need to pray. We should wait quietly before God and tell Him how cold and prayerless our hearts are, and look up to Him and trust Him and expect Him to send the Holy Spirit to warm our hearts and draw them out in prayer. It will not be long before the glow of the Spirit's presence will fill our hearts, and we will begin to pray with freedom, directness, and power."---R.A.Torrey
"Take these hands and lift them up For I have not the strength to praise You near enough. I have nothing without You.
Take my voice and pour it out Let it sing the songs of mercy I have found. I have nothing without You.
All my soul needs is all your love to cover me So that the world will see That I have nothing without you.
Take my body and build it up May it be broken as an offering of love.
Take my time here on this earth. Let it glorify all that You are worth.
For I have nothing, I am nothing without You." ---Bebo Norman
“Prayer does not fit us for the greater work; prayer is the greater work.” ---Oswald Chambers
“How to pray — 1. Recite a few verses of the Bible before you pray. Much of the language of Scripture is in the form of prayer, and by using it we find help in our approches to God. 2. Always go to God with faith in Jesus Christ. In His name you may ask for every blessing; and through His merits, and for His sake, you may find all that can make you happy in this world, with a pardon of your sins, and a good hope of heaven. 3. Seek for the aid of the Holy Spirit, for He will show us what we need, help our weakness, put right desires into our hearts, and teach us how to pray aright. 4. Have something to say to God. Do not say words in an unmeaningful way. Spend a few minutes in thought before you begin to pray, that you may not “mock God with a solemn sound.” 5. Leave the answer to the love and wisdom of God. He will give to us those things which it is best for us to receive.” ---- The Biblical Illustrator
"We are here through Jesus Christ to offer up a sacrifice of praise to you, which we desire to do continually, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge your name. And you have said that he who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies you, and that this will please the LORD more than an ox or a bull with horns and hoofs. We will recount the steadfast love of the LORD, the praises of the LORD, according to all that the LORD has granted us, and the great goodness to the house of Israel that he has granted them according to his compassion, according to the abundance of his steadfast love."
---Matthew Henry (Click here for more of Matthew Henry's Method of Prayer)
"God, our Father in heaven, forgive us for being such reluctant pilgrims, little in almost everything but sin.
Our faith is little, for we pray too often about either trivialities or generalities; we are cautious of turning the specifics over to Thee and Thy mercy.
Our service is little, for we are quick with excuses. We are far more likely to say, 'No, not me', or 'I don't have the time', than we are to reply, 'Yes, Lord, I'll do it'. And this while we call ourselves followers of the Christ Who served all the way from Bethlehem to Calvary.
Our love is little, for we dole it out carefully, as though it were a limited and irreplaceable commodity, rather than a yeasty catalyst which grows only as it is given.
Our strength is little, for we are casual about Thy training rules, forgetful that we have been told, "Train yourself in godliness, for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and the life to come." [1 Tim.4:7b-8]
Forgive us all our littleness, O God. And replace in us the deathless faith, the constant service, the generous love, the tireless strength which befit those who seek to walk in the steps of the Christ Who is the perfect example of each. In His Name we pray. Amen." ---George Bergquist
PRAISE AND THANKFULNESS AND WORSHIP TO GOD:
"Public worship is a holy convocation in which the Triune God meets with and ministers to His assembled covenant people through Word and sacrament, and His people respond with praise, thanksgiving, repentance, confession of sin, supplication, and confession of faith. Therefore, public worship is to be centered on glorifying God, showing forth the worth and excellence of God. It
should be exalting of Christ and empowered by the Spirit."---ARP Directory of Public Worship
"The basis of worship is the covenant relationship whereby God has bound himself to those whom he has saved and claimed." — J.I.Packer
"By day, by night, at home, abroad, Still are we guarded by our God,
By His incessant bounty fed, By His unerring counsel led
In scenes exalted or depressed, Thou art our joy, and Thou our rest;
Thy goodness all our hopes shall raise, Adored thru all our changing days.”
---Philipp Doddridge
"It has seemed to me fit and proper that [the gifts of God] should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged with one heart and one voice by the whole American people. I do, therefore, invite my fellow citizens... to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens."
—Thanksgiving proclamation, 1863. Abraham Lincoln
“The Reformed worship tradition should remind every generation of Christians that the worship of God is the most important of all the Christian’s tasks. That is the primary reason why the Christian should go to church: to worship God. In today’s church climate this is a radical idea." ---Robert Reymond
"Worship is our innermost being responding with praise for all that God is, through our attitudes, actions, thoughts, and words, based on the truth of God as He has revealed Himself." ---John MacArthur
"The true knowledge of God will result, not in our being puffed up with conceit at how knowledgeable we are, but in our falling on our faces before God in sheer wonder and crying, 'O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how unscrutable his ways!' Whenever our knowledge becomes dry or leaves us cold, something has gone wrong." --- John R. W. Stott
"Forgive, O Lord and heal our land
And give us eyes to seek Your face and hearts to understand
That You alone make all things new
And the blessings of the land we love are really gifts from You."
---Michael Card, from 'Heal our Land'
"Great art Thou, O Lord, and greatly to be praised; great is Thy power, and Thy wisdom infinite. And Thee would man praise; man, but a particle of Thy creation; man, that bears about him his mortality, the witness of his sin, the witness that Thou resistest the proud: Yet would man praise Thee; he, but a particle of Thy creation. Thou awakest us to delight in Thy praise; for Thou madest us for Thyself, and our heart is restless, until it repose in Thee." ---Augustine, from "Confessions"
"Missions is not the ultimate goal of the Church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn’t. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man. When this age is over, and the countless millions of the redeemed fall on their faces before the throne of God, missions will be no more. It is a temporary necessity. But worship abides forever. Worship, therefore, is the fuel and goal of missions. It’s the goal of missions because in missions we simply aim to bring the nations into the white hot enjoyment of God’s glory. The goal of missions is the gladness of the peoples in the greatness of God." ---John Piper
"Once it was the blessing, Now it is the Lord;
Once it was the feeling, Now it is his Word.
Once his gifts I wanted, Now the Giver own;
Once I sought for healing, Now himself alone"---. Albert Benjamin Simpson
“Every soul belongs to God and exists by his pleasure. God being who and what he is, and we being who and what we are, the only thinkable relation between us is one of full lordship on his part and complete submission on ours. We owe him every honor that it is in our power to give him.”--- A. W. Tozer
"Let us bring what is our own, God will supply the rest."--- Chrysostom
"When the saints assemble for Divine worship, occupied not with their own needs, but with Christ's excellency; coming not to obtain a blessing, but to offer to God a sacrifice of praise; there is then such a gracious revelation of Himself that we are made to exclaim: "This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven." --- Arthur Pink
"Joy and thanksgiving expressed in prayer and praise according to the Word of God are the heart of the Church's worship." ---John Calvin
“When ministry becomes performance, then the sanctuary becomes a theater, the congregation becomes an audience, worship becomes entertainment, and man’s applause and approval become the measure of success. But when ministry is for the glory of God, His Presence moves into the sanctuary.”
---Richard L. Moore
Q. 58. What is required in the fourth commandment?
A. The fourth commandment requireth the keeping holy to
God such set times as he hath appointed in his word; expressly
one whole day in seven, to be a holy sabbath to himself.----Shorter Catechism
"Jesus spoke about the ox in the ditch on the Sabbath. But if your ox gets in the ditch every Sabbath, you should either get rid of the ox or fill up the ditch."---Billy Graham
"Our desperate need of recovering the Sabbath is much more pressing, I believe, than whether or not we do or do not encourage yearly celebrations of the dominical feasts [i.e., Christmas, Circumcision, Good Friday, Easter, Ascension, and Pentecost]. By giving up Sabbath observance for whatever reasons, we have unwittingly contributed to the quicker secularization of our culture, and have in so doing left a deep gap or vacuum in the spirit of both churched and unchurched people for some kind of touch with traditional transcendent realities. If Sabbath observance is of no real consequence to church people, then the world has yet another practical argument for the peripheral nature of God and the transcendent … . And more to our concern here, if we neglect a whole-hearted observance of the Christian Sabbath, the Lord’s Resurrection Day, we do lose something of the transcendent; indeed, we lose a great deal of it in the very church itself.
Why fill in this deep, hurting gap with attempts at resuscitating ever more of the church year? Is there anything wrong with humbling ourselves and repenting of our abuse of the Lord’s Day, and seeking to return to a happy keeping of it? I suspect that would make the currently popular bringing in of church seasons such as Advent and Lent quite superfluous. After all, these seasons were historically closely tied in to the Medieval Penitential System. Who needs them, when hearts and eyes of faith are turned Sabbath by Sabbath to our great High Priest, who through the power of His atoning blood and resurrection, continually presents us to the Father?" ---Douglas Kelly
"To worship is to quicken the conscience to the holiness of God, to feed the mind with the truth of God, to purge the imagination by the beauty of God, to open the heart to the love of God, to devote the will to the purpose of God."---William Temple
"When we have found God good we must not forget to pronounce Him great; and His kind thoughts of us must not at all abate our high thoughts of Him."
---Matthew Henry, Commenting on 1 Tim.1:17.
"Just the word thanksgiving prompts the spirit of humility. Genuine gratitude to God for his mercy, his abundance, his protection, his smile of favor."---Charles R. Swindoll
"We will be compelled to voice our words of praise firmly and precisely, even as our logic screams that God has no idea what he’s doing. Most of the verses written about praise in God’s Word were penned by men and women who faced crushing heartaches, injustice, treachery, slander, and scores of other intolerable situations."--- Joni Eareckson Tada
"Without Thy sunshine and Thy rain
We could not have the golden grain;
Without Thy love we'd not be fed;
We thank Thee for our daily bread." --Anonymous
"Praise is the best auxiliary to prayer. He who most bears in mind what has been done for him by God will be most emboldened to ask for fresh gifts from above."--- Andrew Melville
"‘I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment. It is not out of compliment that lovers keep telling one another how beautiful they are; the delight is incomplete until it is expressed. It’s frustrating to discover a new author and not be able to tell anyone how good he is; to hear a good joke and find no one to share it with. This is so even when our expressions are inadequate, which they usually are. But if one could really and fully praise even such things to perfection, then the object would be fully appreciated. And our delight would have attained perfect development. The worthier the object, the more intense this delight would be. If it were possible for a created soul fully to love and delight in the worthiest object of all, and simultaneously at every moment to give this delight perfect expression, then that soul would be in supreme beatitude. It is along these lines that I find it easiest to understand the Christian doctrine that heaven is a state in which angels and men are perpetually employed in praising God. To see what that doctrine really means, we must suppose ourselves to be in perfect love with God---drowned in that delight which, far from remaining pent up within ourselves, flows out from us incessantly again in effortless and perfect expression, our joy no more separable from the praise in which it utters itself than the brightness of a mirror is separable from the light it sheds."
---C.S.Lewis
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