How To Pray by Reuben A. Torrey (1900) is a straightforward guide on the why's and how to's of prayer. The chapters, correspondingly, follow in this fashion:
1. The Importance of Prayer
2. Praying Unto God
3. Obeying and Praying
4. Praying in the Name of Christ and According to the Will of God
5. Praying in the Spirit
6. Always Praying and Not Fainting
7. Praying with Thanksgiving
8. Hindrances to Prayer
9. When to Pray
10. The Need of Prayer Before and During Revivals
Some summaries and excerpts:
We are to pray, as Christ did: a great while before day, all night, before great crises, after great events and crises, when life was unusually busy, before great temptations, and as a habit of life.
A wife's prayer for her husband to be converted is selfish when it is because she wants a more pleasant life or even because of the pain she might feel knowing her husband is lost. Why should a woman desire the conversion of her husband? First of all and above all, that God may be glorified; because she cannot bear the thought that God the Father should be dishonored by her husband trampling underfoot the Son of God.
One might take issue with Torrey's concreteness, but this is a helpful work. There are a few places where I took issue with his presentation of Spirit baptism and how God responds to our efforts, but he offers some sound wisdom to the would be intercessor. Plus, it's free.
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