The Ministry of Intercessory Prayer, by Andrew Murray

"Remember the marks of the true intercessor as taught in the parable: (1) a sense of the need of souls; (2) a Christlike love in the heart; (3) a consciousness of personal powerlessness; (4) faith in the power of prayer; (5) courage to persevere in spite of refusal; (6) the assurance of an abundant reward.  These are the qualities that can change a Christian into an intercessor and call forth the power of prevailing prayer.
These are the elements that mark the Christian life with beauty and health.  They equip a man for being a blessing in the world and make him a true Christian minister, one who obtains from God the bread from heaven to dispense to the hungry.  These are the attitudes that call forth the highest virtues of the life of faith.

Let us acknowledge how vain our work for God has been due to our lack of prayer.  Let us change our methods and make continued, persistent prayer the proof that we look to God for all things and that we believe that He hears us and answers us.

The life that with wholehearted devotion gives up all for God and to God can also claim all from God.

Let us not fear to admit to the full the sin that shames us, and then to face it in the name of our Mighty Redeemer. _The light that shows us our sin and condemns us for it, will show us the way out of it, into the life of liberty that is well-pleasing to God._ If we allow this one matter, unfaithfulness in prayer, to convict us of the lack in our Christian life which lies at the root of it, God will use the discovery to bring us not only the power to pray that we long for, but the joy of a new and healthy life, of which prayer is the spontaneous expression. Chp. 1

As we get an insight into the reasonableness and rightness of this divine appointment, and come under the full conviction of how wonderfully it fits in with God's love and our own happiness, we shall be freed from the false impression of its being an arbitrary demand. We shall with our whole heart and soul consent to it and rejoice in it, as the one only possible way for the blessing of heaven to come to earth. All thought of task and burden, of self-effort and strain, will pass away in the blessed faith that as simple as breathing is in the healthy natural life, will praying be in the Christian life that is led and filled by the Spirit of God.  Chp. 1

Jesus Christ is the Healer of all diseases, the Conqueror of all enemies, the Deliverer from all sin; if our failure teaches us to turn afresh to Him, and find in Him the grace He gives to pray as we ought, this humiliation may become our greatest blessing. Let us all unite in praying God that He would visit our souls and fit us for that work of intercession, which is at this moment the greatest need of the Church and the world. It is only by intercession that that power can be brought down from Heaven which will enable the Church to conquer the world. Let us stir up the slumbering gift that is lying unused, and seek to gather and train and band together as many as we can, to be God's remembrancers, and to give Him no rest till He makes His Church a joy in the earth. Chp. 1

 The need of urgent prayer cannot be because God must be made willing or disposed to bless: the need lies altogether in ourselves. But because it was not possible to find any earthly illustration of a loving father or a willing friend from whom the needed lesson of importunity could be taught, He takes the unwilling friend and the unjust judge to encourage in us the faith, that perseverance can overcome every obstacle. The difficulty is not in God's love or power, but in ourselves and our own incapacity to receive the blessing. And yet, because there is this difficulty with us, this lack of spiritual preparedness, there is a difficulty with God too. His wisdom, His righteousness, yea His love, dare not give us what would do us harm, if we received it too soon or too easily. The sin, or the consequence of sin, that makes it impossible for God to give at once, is a barrier on God's side as well as ours; to break through this power of sin in ourselves, or those for whom we pray, is what makes the striving and the conflict of prayer such a reality. Chp. 4