Tuesday April 20

For behold, he is praying. Acts 9:11 NKJV

Constant prayer was offered to God … by the church. Acts 12:5 NKJV

To the church of God … with all who in every place call on the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. 1 Corinthians 1:2 NKJV

Every True Christian Is a Person of Prayer

All the children of God on earth are alike in this respect. From the moment there is any life and reality in their religion, they pray. Just as the first sign of life in an infant when born into the world is the act of breathing, so the first act of men and women when they are born again is praying.

This is one of the common marks of all the elect of God: they always pray and do not give up (Lk. 18:1). The Holy Spirit, who makes them new creatures, works in them the feeling of adoption, and makes them cry, “Abba, Father” (Rom. 8:15). The Lord Jesus, when He saves them, gives them a voice and a tongue, and says to them, “Be silent no more.” God has no speechless children. It is as much a part of their new nature to pray as it is of a child to cry. They see their need of mercy and grace. They feel their emptiness and weakness. They cannot do otherwise than they do. They must pray.

I have looked carefully over the lives of God’s saints in the Bible. From Genesis to Revelation, I cannot find one about whose history much is told us who was not a man of prayer. I find it mentioned as characteristic of the godly, that they call on the Father and call on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. I find it recorded as characteristic of the wicked, that they do not call upon the Lord (1 Pet. 1:17; 1 Cor. 1:2; Ps. 14:4).

I have read the lives of many great Christians who have been on earth since Bible days. Some of them, I see, were rich, and some poor. Some were educated, and some uneducated. But one thing I see they all had in common: they have all been men of prayer.

J. C. Ryle