J.C. Ryle Prayer

"I do not deny that a man may pray without heart and without
sincerity. I do not for a moment pretend to say that the mere fact of
a person's praying proves everything about his soul. As in every other
part of religion, so also in this, there may be deception and
hypocrisy.
But this I do say, that not praying is a clear proof that a man is not
yet a true Christian. He cannot really feel his sins. He cannot love
God. He cannot feel himself a debtor to Christ, He cannot long after
holiness. He cannot desire heaven. He has yet to be born again. He has
yet to be made a new creature. He may boast confidently of election,
grace, faith, hope, and knowledge, and deceive ignorant people. But
you may rest assured it is all vain talk if he does not pray."


"We live in days of abounding religious profession. There are more
places of public worship now than there ever were before. There are
more persons attending them than there ever were before. And yet in
spite of all this public religion, I believe there is a vast neglect
of private prayer. It is one of those private transactions between God
and our souls which no eye sees, and therefore one which men are
tempted to pass over and leave undone.
I believe that thousands never utter a word of prayer at all. They
eat. They drink. They sleep. They rise. They go forth to their labor.
They return to their homes. They breathe God's air. They see God's
sun. They walk on God's earth. They enjoy God's mercies. They have
dying bodies. They have judgment and eternity before them. But they
never speak to God. They live like the beasts that perish. They behave
like creatures without souls. They have not one word to say to Him in
whose hand are their life and breath, and all things, and from whose
mouth they must one day receive their everlasting sentence. How
dreadful this seems; but if the secrets of men were only known, how
common."

"Have you forgotten the lives that many live? Can we really believe
that people are praying against sin night and day, when we see them
plunging into it? Can we suppose they pray against the world, when
they are entirely absorbed and taken up with its pursuits? Can we
think they really ask God for grace to serve him, when they do not
show the slightest desire to serve him at all? Oh, no, it is plain as
daylight that the great majority of men either ask nothing of God or
do not mean what they say when they do ask, which is just the same
thing. Praying and sinning will never live together in the same heart.
Prayer will consume sin, or sin will choke prayer. I cannot forget
this. I look at men's lives. I believe that few pray."

"Bibles read without prayer; sermons heard without prayer; marriages
contracted without prayer; journeys undertaken without prayer;
residences chosen without prayer; friendships formed without prayer;
the daily act of private prayer itself hurried over, or gone through
without heart: these are the kind of downward steps by which many a
Christian descends to a condition of spiritual palsy, or reaches the
point where God allows him to have a tremendous fall."