F. B. Meyer Quotes on Prayer, Faith, Trials and the Holy Spirit
Christian LifePrayerHoly Spirit
F. B. Meyer was an English Baptist pastor, a favorite speaker at the Keswick Convention, and the writer of more than seventy-five books. He had a gift for the short, gentle sentence that stays with you: a word of comfort for someone in trouble, or a plain call to give yourself wholly to Christ. His lives of Bible characters and his devotional books are still read for that reason.
Many Meyer quotes online have no source, and some can't be traced to him at all. Every quotation below is copied exactly from his books in TheWay Library, with the book and chapter it comes from, so you can read each one in context. For his life story, see who was F. B. Meyer. For a guide to all his books, see F. B. Meyer books.
On prayer
Meyer believed most Christians pray too little, and that real prayer takes hold of what God has promised.
The great lack of our life is that we do not pray more.
Love to the Uttermost, How to Secure More and Better Prayer
Prayer is measured, not by length, but by strength.
Christ in Isaiah, Asking and Commanding
Though the Bible be crowded with golden promises from board to board, yet will they be inoperative until we turn them into prayer.
Elijah, and the Secret of His Power, Rain at Last!
We do not enough distinguish between praying and claiming by a simple faith; but there is a wide difference between the two.
The Future Tenses of the Blessed Life, Claiming and Reckoning
There may be much prayer without the faith that claims.
The Future Tenses of the Blessed Life, Kept and Watered
The Apostle does not bid us pray for the abundance of grace, but calls on us to take it.
Peter: Fisherman, Disciple, Apostle, For Me and Thee
On faith
His Bible biographies return again and again to faith as the secret of the lives God used.
There is no short cut to the life of faith, which is the all-vital condition of a holy and victorious life.
David: Shepherd, Psalmist, King, The Faith of God's Elect
His faith sufficed to do what all his other qualities, without his faith, must have failed in doing.
Moses: The Servant of God, Our Standpoint
But faith lays hold of these clear teachings of the Word of God and dares to call feeling a liar, while it holds God's Word as truth.
The Shepherd Psalm, The House of the Lord Forever
On surrender and the self-life
At Keswick, Meyer called Christians to put self off the throne and let Christ live in them.
We are not what we feel or think, or wish, but what we will.
A Castaway, and Other Addresses, The Substitution of the Christ-Life for the Self-Life
The I-life must be crucified before the Christ-life can take its place.
Israel, a Prince with God, The Midnight Wrestle
Jesus on the throne, Jesus in the heart, Jesus in the life — Jesus, the Saviour, the King, the Friend.
Back to Bethel, The Strong Man Armed
When Christ becomes a resident and inmate of the inner man, He comes arrayed in all His beautiful garments.
Calvary to Pentecost, The Exorcism of Self
We are to reflect Jesus as the mirror does the face and movements of the person in whose apartment it stands.
The Glorious Lord, How to Become Like Christ
We are in Christ by the act of God's grace and power, and surely He who put us in, can keep us there.
Love to the Uttermost, "Abide in Me, and I in you"
On the Holy Spirit
The Holy Spirit is, so to speak, the medium by which Jesus dwells in the surrendered heart, and operates through it, and in it.
The Present Tenses of the Blessed Life, Teacheth
There are three agents in purification — the Word of God; the Blood of the Son of God; and the Fire of God, which is the Holy Ghost.
The Present Tenses of the Blessed Life, Our God Is a Consuming Fire
The mission of Israel would be realized not by them, but by the Spirit of God through them.
The Prophet of Hope, The Candlestick
On temptation and our thoughts
He was practical about the fight with sin, especially in the mind.
You sin when you open your heart and let the thought in and gloat over it.
Back to Bethel, The Rule of Our Thoughts
Until you have learned to control your thoughts you will never be able to live a godly and righteous life.
Saved and Kept, The Control of Our Thoughts
The onset of temptation indicates that God knows that we are strong enough to resist, and that sufficient grace is surely within our reach.
Joseph: Beloved, Hated, Exalted, In the House of Potiphar
We may become as much self-centered in our search for joy as we are in our search for salvation.
Saved and Kept, Not Joy, but Christ
On guidance
Meyer's counsel on knowing God's will is some of his most quoted teaching.
God in the heart, impelling you forward; God in His Book, corroborating whatever He says in the heart; and God in circumstances, which are always indicative of His will.
Back to Bethel, Life, a Poem
Where God's finger points, there God's hand will make the way.
Elijah, and the Secret of His Power, The Translation
Do not say in thine heart what thou wilt or wilt not do; but wait upon God until He makes known his way.
David: Shepherd, Psalmist, King, A Fit of Mistrust
On trials and care
He wrote many books for people under pressure. These lines come from them.
God's people are not saved from trial, but in it.
Christ in Isaiah, Ye Are My Witnesses
God is always considering what we are able to bear; never leading us into dangers before which heart and flesh would succumb.
Moses: The Servant of God, The Passage of the Red Sea
We must cast all our care on Him, if we would know the blessedness of unshadowed fellowship.
Tried by Fire, Care, and What to Do with It
And thus amid manifold trials souls which love God will find reasons for bounding, leaping joy.
Tried by Fire, For Those in Heaviness
Be sure, if you are weaned from the breast of human comfort, you turn with invincible comfort to the heart of God.
Cheer for Life's Pilgrimage, Stilled and Quieted
On grief and the blessed dead
Peace, Perfect Peace is his small book for the grieving.
Where they were we are; and, by God's grace, where they are we shall be.
Peace, Perfect Peace, How to Bear Sorrow
No, God entrusts angels to fulfill many ministries for us, but never to comfort.
Peace, Perfect Peace, Comforted to Comfort
On God's love and mercy
Sin is dark, dangerous, damnable: but it cannot staunch the love of God; it cannot change the love that is not of yesterday, but dates from eternity itself.
David: Shepherd, Psalmist, King, The Sin of His Life
What an infinite mistake to miss the fountain freely flowing to quench the thirst, and hew out the broken cistern in which is disappointment and despair!
Jeremiah, Priest and Prophet, Cistern-Making
No matter how weak and sinful; though a wreck through sin, with only a fragment of a life to give, He will never, never, cast out.
The Life and Light of Men, The Father's Gift to the Son
On preaching and service
The one supreme object of the Christian ministry is to preach Christ, and Him crucified.
Expository Preaching: Plans and Methods, A Plea for the Expository Method in Preaching
The best way to vindicate the Bible is to preach it.
Joshua, and the Land of Promise, Preface
If only the Gospel of the love of God made progress, and the Lord Jesus were magnified, he was more than content to suffer to the uttermost.
Paul, a Servant of Jesus Christ, The Furtherance of the Gospel
Read Meyer in full
These lines are better in their place, inside the Bible story Meyer is telling. Start with Joseph or The Shepherd Psalm, and for his teaching on the Spirit, read Steps Into the Blessed Life. All thirty-two of his books in the library are on the F. B. Meyer author page.