"One prayer routine that is balanced and easy to remember is found in the word ACTS, an acrostic whose four letters stand for adoration, confession, thanksgiving, and supplication."

"Keep on praying because the Father does listen. He loves our company, he wants us to endure in prayerfulness and he is eager to do whatever is best for us."

"A key ingredient in authentic Christianity is time. Not leftover time, not throwaway time, but quality time. Time for contemplation, meditation and reflection. Unhurried, uninterrupted time."

"I can write about prayer, you can read about prayer...but sooner or later you have to fall to your knees and just plain pray. Then, and only then, will you begin to operate in the vein of God's miracle-working ways."

"Most of us are far too busy for our own spiritual good."

"One reason we stop praying or let our prayer lives fade is that we are too comfortable."

"The time of day we choose for prayer doesn't matter, so long as we keep it faithfully. Prayer must be part of the rhythm of our daily lives."

"Don't let your prayers turn into a wish list for Santa Claus. Worship God and praise him when you come to him in prayer."

"God-honoring prayers are not simply shopping lists. They are more than cries for help, strength, mercy and miracles. Authentic prayer should include worship, submission, requests, and confessions."

"If your ear is open to the afflicted, God will keep his ear open to you."

"Sin is plenty strong enough to create an ever-widening gap in one's relationship with God. The wider the gap, the less likely we are to pray. And the less we pray, the wider the gap becomes."

"How would you feel if your prayer requests were made public, displayed on a billboard or marquee? "Dear Lord, make me famous. Make me rich.""

"When Jesus prayed the model prayer we call the Lord's Prayer, his first requests were that God's name be shown reverence, that his kingdom come, that his will be done."

"We can have no deep, ongoing fellowship with God unless we obey him - totally."

"Never forget that if you are God's child through Jesus Christ, you are praying to a Father who couldn't love you more than he already does."

"The Lord's Prayer is an excellent model, but it was never intended to be a magical incantation to get God's attention. Jesus gave this prayer as a pattern to suggest the variety of elements that should be included when we pray."

"God is committed to developing a people who will reflect his character in this world, and his character always expresses concern and compassion for the afflicted."

"Unconfessed sin cuts off our communication with the Father."

"If you let even a little sin into your heart, it's going to contaminate your prayers. Your Christian life will not achieve its full potential."

"Are you expecting God to fill your needs? Are you asking him to do so - regularly, earnestly and persistently?"

"If you're tolerating sin in your life, my friend, don't waste your breath praying unless it's a prayer of confession."

"If Christ's followers aren't growing, it is because they are not making a habit of evaluating their lives. They don't step back and ask, "What's working and what's not working?""

"Adoration in prayer reminds us of God's identity and inclination. As we list his attributes, lifting up his character and personality, we reinforce our understanding of who he is."

"Prayer busters (causes of unanswered prayer) are prayerlessness, unconfessed sin, unresolved relational conflict, selfishness, uncaring attitudes, and inadequate faith."

"If you have pumped your fist at God, the good news is that you can come back into fellowship with him right this minute."

"By forcing us to look closely at our requests, prayer purifies us."

"Second, I use inference from technical studies and theories in order to provide practical information for therapists. Those thoughts are several steps removed from scientific validity."

"These differences involve a tendency for more males to be at one end of the continuum on a specific cognitive ability, while the majority of females tend to be toward the other end of the continuum on the same ability, with some overlap between the two groups."

"If his/her siblings and parents are not treated and he/she is strong enough to continue the recovery, a sibling will take up the “druggie” role."

"Four out of five teenagers I talked with did not get “high” until the fourth, fifth, sixth, or seventh time that they tried alcohol and/pr pot."

"If a child has an older sibling involved in an addiction, there is a 90 percent chance that he or she will get involved too."

"As the therapeutic relationship is established and progress occurs in problem areas, the therapist can "lead" and "push" the adolescent toward abstract reasoning skill."

"Finally, law enforcement needs to increase the consequences for kids found intoxicated or in possession of drugs. The current slap on the wrist leaves kids with the idea "Cops are cool. When they take our drugs they are going to use them to get high. They are really helping us avoid the silly law."

"Our teenage “druggies” are habituated to drugs rather than addicted. While beer and other alcoholic beverages are preferred drugs, kids have simply not used alcohol long enough to become addicted. The other drug of preference – marijuana – is not addictive."

"A certain group of adolescents evidence clear “druggie” behavior and attributes some time before they actually begin drug use."

"Second, the only proven technique for treatment for chemically dependent people involves use of a spiritual program of self-change."

"Drug-use is a terminal disease."

"It was evident that the treatment program’s building was a place where miracles happen."

"Adolescence in my growing up period was truly “Happy Days,” the title of a TV show connotating the quality of this life period."

"Our own unresolved authority problems from our youth sometimes get transferred to our youthful patients, because we are still "covert adolescent rebels." In subtle ways, we encourage the adolescent patient to rebel towards parents, school authorities, and society in general."

"Careful listening to current country and western and rock music with the help of an interpreter for coded phrases shows that young people are hearing a constant stream of messages about getting high, feeling good, going on trips, and using drugs of all kinds with all methods."

"We have communion in Christ's sufferings as we die with Him unto self, and rise with Him to our proper life — the life of self- surrender to the will of God."

"The narrow way, the way of holiness, not only leads to life, but it is life. Walking there, serene are our days, peaceful our nights, happy — high above the disorders and miseries of a wretched world—shall be our hourly communion with God; happy — full of assurance, of calm and sacred triumph, shall be our dying hour."

"In our weakness, His strength is ours. In our conflicts, His victories are ours. In our bereavements and sorrows, His grace is ours. He had not where to lay His weary head, that we might have His bosom on which to lean our fevered brows. He endured the cross, and despised the shame, that, instead of weeping and wailing, we might share His immortal blessedness."

"God's truth and faithfulness "are a great deep." They resemble the ocean itself; always there — vast, fathomless, sublime, the same in its majesty, its inexhaustible fullness, yesterday, to-day, and forever; the same in calm and storm, by day and by night; changeless while generations come and pass; everlasting while ages are rolling away."

"O, for a living faith in a living Redeemer!"

"The greatest truths are ever known through the heart; and this sublimest of all truths, the amazing sacrifice which Eternal Love has made for guilty man, can be comprehended only by the heart, — by communion with that Love in its sorrows, sacrifices, triumphs, joys."

"Saving faith is confidence in Jesus; a direct, confidential transaction with Him."

"O, cross of my bleeding Lord, may I meditate on thee more, may I feel thee more, may I resolve to know nothing but thee."