A. W. Tozer - Prayer: Communing with God in Everything—Collected Insights from A. W. Tozer

The church desperately needs to be called back to the place of truly seeking Gods face and praying in Gods kingdom. Few are more qualified to make that call than A.W. Tozer. And I know of no one more like Tozer and more able to communicate what Tozer would say today than Dr. Bill Seaver. I heartily recommend the thoughtful and prayerful reading of this book. As you do that, you will experience personal spiritual renewal along with a strong desire to see others receive the same.

GARY HUTCHISON
Senior Pastor, Grace Community Church
Arlington, Texas

It is a great delight and joy to commend this book on prayer. In this book of excerpts from A. W. Tozers popular writings, Dr. Bill Seaver provides a great tool with clear directions for meditation and prayer. Few books are worth a second read, but this one goes on my shelf as one to get to know like a good friend.

GALE HARTLEY
Pastor, Bethany Baptist Church, Mountain City, Tennessee
Served in Eastern Europe with the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention

A. W. Tozer was a mighty man of prayer. Dr. Seaver leads us into a deep understanding of this revealing, convicting, and powerful life of dynamic prayer. This type of prayer weaves for us a seamless tapestry of sweet communion with our Father and sacrificial service to one another.

BRUCE ALLSOP, MD
Family Medicine, Trinity Counseling Center, Knoxville, Tennessee
Association of Certified Biblical Counseling

All A. W. Tozer excerpts
2016 THE MOODY BIBLE INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO

Preface, Commentary, and Questions
2016 W. L. SEAVER

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

All Scripture quotations by A. W. Tozer, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the King James Version.
All Scripture quotations by William L. Seaver, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the New American Standard Bible, Copyright 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. (www.Lockman.org)
Scripture quotations marked ESV are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (ESV), copyright 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Edited by James Vincent
Interior and Cover design: Erik M. Peterson
Cover art by Unhidden Media, unhiddenmedia.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Tozer, A. W. (Aiden Wilson), 1897-1963. | Seaver, W. L., compiler.
Title: Prayer : communing with God in everything--collected insights from A.
W. Tozer / compiled by W.L. Seaver.
Description: Chicago : Moody Publishers, 2016. | Includes bibliographical
references.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015034041 | ISBN 9780802413819
Subjects: LCSH: Prayer--Christianity.
Classification: LCC BV210.3 .T69 2016 | DDC 248.3/2--dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015034041

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From W. L. Seaver:

To my beautiful wife, Barbara, and to my family and friends, who were truly my prayer partners from the inception to the completion of this work, and to my God, who divinely enabled me to pen this work.

W ith fear and trembling, I approached this task of compiling Tozers words on prayer and praying. I tried to avoid it, but the Spirit kept drawing me back to the riches of the topic for myself and others. While I did complete one of the first courses on prayer taught at a seminary over thirty years ago, the biggest plus of that experience was the opportunity to read a lot of books on prayer by Andrew Murray, E. M. Bounds, Ole Hallesby, D. L. Moody, Watchman Nee, Leonard Ravenhill, and others. In the years to follow there were successes and failures in my prayer life, but I know that the priority of prayer and the Word of God (Acts 6:4) should still hold today for all saints.

When one peruses the writings of Tozer on prayer, one does not find how-to manuals on prayer or exposition of famous prayers of the saints in the Bible from Abraham to David to Daniel and to the minor prophets, nor from Stephen outside Jerusalem to Paul in Rome. The reason for these omissions may be found in Tozers words in his book, The Counselor:

Do you recall that in the times of prayer recorded in the Gospels the only one who could stay awake was Jesus? Others tried to pray, but they came to Him and said, Teach us to pray (Luke 11:1).

Some of the churches now advertise courses on how to pray. How ridiculous! That is like giving a course on how to fall in love. When the Holy Spirit comes He takes the things of God and translates them into language our hearts can understand. Even if we do not know the will of God, the Holy Spirit does know, and He prays with groanings which cannot be uttered (Rom. 8:26). These disciples were praying peoplein the book of Acts you will find them in prayer meetings. But before that, they would fall asleep. The difference was by the Spiritnow they had great delight in prayer.

With that being said, it is fairly evident that Tozer dealt with the believers daily relationship with the Lord and how that produced effective prayer.

For instance, such thoughts about the Christians daily walk with the Lord and effective prayer come from studying Abrahams prayer for Sodom and Gomorrah where Lot was living, as recorded in Genesis 18:2233:

Then the men turned away from there and went toward Sodom, while Abraham was still standing before the Lord. Abraham came near and said, Will You indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city; will You indeed sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous who are in it? Far be it from You to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous and the wicked are treated alike. Far be it from You! Shall not the Judge of all the earth deal justly? So the Lord said, If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare the whole place on their account. And Abraham replied, Now behold, I have ventured to speak to the Lord, although I am but dust and ashes. Suppose the fifty righteous are lacking five, will You destroy the whole city because of five? And He said, I will not destroy it if I find forty-five there. He spoke to Him yet again and said, Suppose forty are found there? And He said, I will not do it on account of the forty. Then he said, Oh may the Lord not be angry, and I shall speak; suppose thirty are found there? And He said, I will not do it if I find thirty there. And he said, Now behold, I have ventured to speak to the Lord; suppose twenty are found there? And He said, I will not destroy it on account of the twenty. Then he said, Oh may the Lord not be angry, and I shall speak only this once; suppose ten are found there? And He said, I will not destroy it on account of the ten. As soon as He had finished speaking to Abraham the Lord departed, and Abraham returned to his place. (NASB)