This document contains summaries of various passages from Ellen G. White on the topic of prayer. It discusses the importance of humility, sincerity, and obedience in prayer. True prayer engages the soul and affects one's life and actions. Formal or hypocritical prayers that are not heartfelt are unacceptable to God. Communion with God through prayer can impart knowledge of His will and power to overcome sin.

1. Mrs. Ellen G.White

2. Humility and Reverence should characterize
the deportment of all who come to the
presence of God.
We should remember that we are in His sight
whom seraphim adore and before whom
angels veil their faces.

3. The prayers that are offered to God to tell Him
of all our wretchedness, when we do not feel
wretched at all, are the prayers of hypocrisy.
It is the contrite prayer that the Lord regards.
Prayer is not intended to make a change in
God. It does not take the place of duty. (MYP
247-248)

4. There are some who do not take their troubles
to God in private prayer, but reserve them for
the prayer meeting, and there do up their
prayer for “several” days. Such may be
named conference and prayer meeting
KILLERS.

5. To expect that our prayer will always be
answered in just the way we want is
presumption.
The prayer of faith is never lost but to claim
that it will be always answered in the very
way and for the particular thing we have
expected, is presumption.

6. The heathen looked upon their prayers as having
themselves merit to atone for sin.
Prayer is not a compensation for sin; it has no virtue
or merit of itself.
God does not desire our ceremonial compliments,
but the unspoken cry of the heart broken and
subdued with a sense of its sin and utter weakness
finds its way to the Father of all mercy.

7. Satan leads people to think that because they
felt a rapture of feeling, they are converted.
But their actions are the same as before.
They are deceived for their experience is no
deeper than feeling.
What is the sign of a new heart – A changed
life.

8. Men and women, in the face of the most positive
commands of God, will follow their own
inclination, and then dare to pray over the matter,
to prevail upon God to consent them to go
contrary to His expressed will.
The prayers of this class are an abomination to God.
True prayer engages the energies of the soul and
affects the life. He who thus pours out his wants
before God feels the emptiness of everything else
under heaven.

9. The eye of faith will discern God very near, and
the suppliant may obtain precious evidence of
the divine love and care for him.
He speaks of some who “have not cried unto Me
with their heart.” Such petitions are prayers of
form, lip service only, which the Lord does not
accept.

10. Heaven is not closed against the fervent
prayers of the righteous.
The only reason for our lack of power with God
is to be found in ourselves.
We must be much in prayer if we would make
progress in the divine life.

11. There were some like Judas among those who
profess to be waiting for their Lord. Satan
controls them, but they know it not.
If the eyes of such could be opened, they would
see Satan in hellish triumph, exulting over
them and laughing at the folly of those who
accept his suggestions and enter his snares.

12. Our petitions to God should not proceed from
hearts that are filled with selfish aspirations.
God exhorts us to choose those gifts that will
redound to His glory.
When the worldly possession is swept away,
the believer will rejoice in his heavenly
treasure, the riches that cannot be lost in any
earthly disaster.

13. The church needs the fresh, living experience of
members who have habitual communion with God.
Dry, stale testimonies and prayers, without the
manifestation of Christ in them, are no help to the
people.
If everyone who claims to be a child of God were filled
with faith and light and life, what a wonderful witness
would be given to those who come to hear the truth!

14. The poor publican who prayed, “God be merciful
to me a sinner” (Luke 18:13), regarded himself as
a very wicked man, and others looked upon him
in the same light; but he felt his need, and with
his burden of guilt and shame he came before
God, asking for His mercy. His heart was open
for the Spirit of God to do its gracious work and
set him free from the power of sin.

15. The Pharisee’s boastful, self-righteous prayer
showed that his heart was closed against the
influence of the Holy Spirit. Because of his
distance from God, he had no sense of his
own defilement, in contrast with the
perfection of the divine holiness. He felt no
need, and he received nothing.

16. There are conditions to the fulfillment of God’s
promises, and prayer can never take the place of
duty.
“If ye love Me,” Christ says, “Keep My
commandments.”
“He that hath My commandments, and keepeth
them, he it is that loveth Me; and he that loveth Me
shall be loved of My Father, and I will love him, and
will manifest Myself to him.”
John 14:15, 21.

17. The prayer of form and the prayer of faith.
The repetition of set, customary phrases when the
heart feels no need of God, is formal prayer.
The prayer that comes from an earnest heart, when
the simple wants of the soul are expressed just as
we would ask an earthly friend for a favor,
expecting that it would be granted—this is the
prayer of faith.

18. Communion with God imparts to the soul an
intimate knowledge of His will. But many
who profess the faith know not what true
conversion is.
They have no experience in communion with
the Father through Jesus Christ, and have
never felt the power of divine grace to
sanctify the heart.

19. Praying and sinning, sinning and praying, their lives
are full of malice, deceit, envy, jealousy, and self-
love. The prayers of this class are an abomination
to God. True prayer engages the energies of the
soul and affects the life. He who thus pours out his
wants before God feels the emptiness of
everything else under heaven.

20. GOD BLESS US
&
THANK YOU!!!