Praying with John...


...that's Mr Newton to you... (from 1780) has some advice on how to pray for young men.

The prayers of some good men are more like preaching than praying. They rather express the Lord's mind to the people, than the desires of the people to the Lord. Indeed this can hardly be called prayer.
And...
The chief fault of some good prayers is, that they are too long; not that I think we should pray by the clock, and limit ourselves precisely to a certain number of minutes; but it is better of the two, that the hearers should wish the prayer had been longer, than spend half the time in wishing it was over.

See the full text here on the Resurgence Blog

 

2 comments:

Michael said... 9/18/2007 10:32 pm  

I got half way through before I noticed that it was by "John Newton from 1780" John Newton. Great advice for all public and not so public pray-ers. It almost seems amazing at how relevant his stuff still is (I think we quite often consider ourselves to be all rather advanced and that).

Alan said... 9/19/2007 12:57 am  

Hehe.. I didn't even know it WAS John Newton.. I Didn't notice the date.. and John Newton could be such a general name.. >.< but the content was fantastic..!
Helps in context of Con Christian Group, and certainly affects my prayer life, esp. my public prayer life..

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