E. Stanley Jones

Continuing a Lenten series on prayer: Prayer is co-operation with God. It is the purest exercise of the faculties God has given us - an exercise that links these faculties with the Maker to work out the intentions He had in mind in their creation.

Prayer is aligning ourselves with the purposes of God.

To pass from estrangement from God to be a son of God is the basic fact of conversion. That altered relationship with God gives you an altered relationship with yourself, with your brother man, with nature, with the universe.

Prayer is commission. Out of the quietness with God, power is generated that turns the spiritual machinery of the world. When you pray, you begin to feel the sense of being sent, that the divine compulsion is upon you.

If the Holy Spirit can take over the subconscious with our consent and cooperation, then we have almighty Power working at the basis of our lives, then we can do anything we ought to do, go anywhere we ought to go, and be anything we ought to be.

Our actions are the results of our intentions and our intelligence.

Being born in a Christian home does not make you a Christian.

Our intentions may be very good, but, because the intelligence is limited, the action may turn out to be a mistake - a mistake, but not necessarily a sin, for sin comes out of a wrong intention.

At the cross God wrapped his heart in flesh and blood and let it be nailed to the cross for our redemption.

Victorious living does not mean freedom from temptation, nor does it mean freedom from mistakes.