Alone With God (MacArthur Study Series)

Alone With God (MacArthur Study Series)

by John MacArthur

Dr. MacArthur helps readers discover the power and passion that can be found in truly Biblical prayer. Personal and group study guides included.

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Paperback, 187 pages

Published December 31st 1995 by Chariot Victor Publishing (first published 1995)

tags: theology, spirituality, faith, christianity, religion, inspirational, nonfiction, christian living, prayer, christian

Book Quotes

“If you are ever to know power and passion in your prayer life, you need to pray with a devout heart—with a pure motive seeking only the glory of God. You also need to pray with a humble heart, seeking only the attention of God, not men. Finally, you need to pray with a confident heart, knowing full well that God already knows what you need. If you go to God on those terms, He will reward you in ways you could never imagine, and you’ll learn the value of being alone with God.”

― John MacArthur

“How His electing grace and predestined purpose can stand beside His love for the world and desire that the gospel be preached to all people, still holding them responsible for their own rejection and condemnation, is a divine mystery.”

― John MacArthur

“If you want to pray for one another, don’t pray for the physical necessities only—make it your priority to pray for the important spiritual issues of life because they are of the greatest concern to God. His ultimate purpose is to conform you to the image of Jesus Christ.”

― John MacArthur

“When all our needs are met and all is well in our lives, we tend to take credit for what we have, to feel that we carry our own loads. We work hard to earn the money we need to buy food and clothes, pay our rent or mortgage. But even the hardest-working individual owes all he earns to God’s provision. Moses reminded Israel that God “is giving you power to make wealth” (Deut. 8:18).”

― John MacArthur

“Sin is the monarch that rules the heart of every man. It is the first lord of the soul, and its virus has contaminated every living being.”

― John MacArthur

“When programs, methods, and money produce impressive results, there is an inclination to confuse human success with divine blessing. Christians can actually behave like practical humanists, living as if God were not necessary. When that happens, passionate longing for God and yearning for His help will be missing—along with His empowerment.”

― John MacArthur

topics: Dependence On God, Prayer

“It is the highest activity of the human soul, and therefore it is at the same time the ultimate test of a man’s true spiritual condition. There is nothing that tells the truth about us as Christian people so much as our prayer life.… Ultimately, therefore, a man discovers the real condition of his spiritual life when he examines himself in private, when he is alone with God.… And have we not all known what it is to find that, somehow, we have less to say to God when we are alone than when we are in the presence of others? It should not be so; but it often is. So that it is when we have left the realm of activities and outward dealings with other people, and are alone with God, that we really know where we stand in a spiritual sense.3”

― John MacArthur

“When I pray, “Your kingdom come,” I am saying to God’s Holy Spirit, “Spirit of Christ within me, take control and do what You will for Your glory.” A true child of God won’t be preoccupied with his own plans and desires but with the determinate program of God, revealed in the person of Jesus Christ.”

― John MacArthur

“Our nation now affirms, through its legislative bodies and courts, a distinctively anti-Christian agenda. Anything singularly Christian has been virtually swept away under the aegis of equal rights and moral freedom. The divine standards and biblical morality that our nation once embraced are assaulted constantly. Moral freedom now reigns. Materialism and the breakdown of the family are epidemic. Abortions, sexual evils, drugs, and crime are rampant. And our leaders are at a loss to know what to do because there are no standards left to provide controls for these problems.”

― John MacArthur

“If the church today took the effort it spends on political maneuvering and lobbying and poured that energy into intercessory prayer, we might see a profound impact on our nation.”

― John MacArthur

“What unworthy ideas and notions this world has of God! If you test your ideas of God by the teaching of the Scriptures you will see at a glance what I mean. We lack even a due sense of the greatness and the might and the majesty of God. Listen to men arguing about God, and notice how glibly they use the term.… It is indeed almost alarming to observe the way in which we all tend to use the name of God. We obviously do not realize that we are talking about the ever blessed, eternal, and absolute, almighty God. There is a sense in which we should take our shoes off our feet whenever we use the name.1”

― John MacArthur

“prayer is not an attempt to get God to agree with you or provide for your selfish desires”

― John MacArthur

“A Christian should carry the weapon of all prayer like a drawn sword in his hand. We should never sheathe our supplications.”

― John MacArthur

“And have we not all known what it is to find that, somehow, we have less to say to God when we are alone than when we are in the presence of others?”

― John MacArthur

“Martyn Lloyd-Jones once wrote, “Prayer is beyond any question the highest activity of the human soul. Man is at his greatest and highest when upon his knees he comes face to face with God.”1”

― John MacArthur

“Imagine spending an entire workday with your best friend at your side. You would no doubt acknowledge his presence throughout the day by introducing him to your friends or business associates and talking to him about the various activities of the day. But how would your friend feel if you never talked to him or acknowledged his presence? Yet that’s how we treat the Lord when we fail to pray. If we communicated with our friends as infrequently as some of us communicate with the Lord, those friends might soon disappear.”

― John MacArthur

“Christians can actually behave like practical humanists, living as if God were not necessary.”

― John MacArthur

“Why, despite His best efforts and endless patience with human beings, do they end up a disaster? Simply because they resist His will.”

― John MacArthur

“If it is performed in a formal or customary and overly manner, you would be as good to omit it altogether; for the Lord takes our prayers not by number but by weight. When it is an outward picture, a dead carcass of prayer, when there is no life, no fervency in it, God does not regard it. Do not be deceived in this, it is a very common deception. It may be a man’s conscience would be upon him, if he should omit it altogether. Therefore, when he does something, his heart is satisfied, and so he grows worse and worse. Therefore, consider that the very doing of the duty is not that which the Lord heeds, but He will have it so performed that the end may be obtained and that the thing for which you pray may be effected. If a man sends his servant to go to such a place, it is not his going to and fro that he regards, but he would have him to dispatch the business. So it is in all other works. He does not care about the formality of performance, but he would have the thing so done that it may be of use to him. If you send a servant to make a fire for you, and he goes and lays some green wood together and puts a few coals underneath, this is not to make a fire for you. He must either get dry wood, or he must blow until it burns and is fit for use. So when your hearts are unfit, when they are like green wood, when you come to warm them and to quicken them by prayer to God, it may be you post over this duty, and leave your hearts as cold and distempered as they were before. My beloved, this is not to perform this duty. The duty is effectually performed when your hearts are wrought upon by it, and when they are brought to a better tune and temper than they were before.”

― John MacArthur

“If you find a deadness and unaptness, an indisposition in you, you must lift up your souls to the Lord and not give over until you are quickened. And this is to perform the duty in such a manner as the Lord accepts, otherwise it is hypocritical performance; for this is hypocrisy, when a man is not willing to let the duty go altogether, nor yet is willing to perform it fervently, and in a quick and zealous manner. He that omits it altogether is a profane person, and he that performs it zealously, and to purpose, is a holy man; but a hypocrite goes between both. He would do something at it, but he will not do it thoroughly. And, therefore, if you find you have carelessly performed this duty from day to day, that you have performed it in a negligent, perfunctory manner, know that it is a hypocritical performance.”

― John MacArthur

John MacArthur

John F. MacArthur, Jr. is a fifth-generation preacher who serves as a pastor-teacher of Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California. He is also a prolific author, conference speaker, and is president of The Master's College and Seminary. MacArthur received a B.A. from Los Angeles Pacific College, his M.Div. from Talbot Theological Seminary, Litt.D. at Grace Graduate School, and D.D. from Talbot Theological Seminary. In addition to his administrative responsibilities, he regularly teaches Expository Preaching at the seminary and frequently speaks in chapel.

MacArthur's pulpit ministry has been extended around the globe through his media ministry, Grace to You, and its satellite offices in Australia, Canada, Europe, India, New Zealand, Singapore, and South Africa. In addition to producing daily radio programs for nearly 2,000 English and Spanish radio outlets worldwide, Grace to You distributes books, software, audiotapes, and CDs by John MacArthur. In thirty-six years of ministry, Grace to You has distributed more than thirteen million CDs and audiotapes.

John Fullerton MacArthur, Jr. is a United States evangelical writer and minister, noted for his radio program entitled Grace to You. MacArthur is a fifth-generation pastor, a popular author and conference speaker and has served as the pastor-teacher of Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California since 1969, and as the President of The Master's College (and the related The Master's Seminary) in Santa Clarita, California.

Theologically, MacArthur is a conservative far-right Baptist, a strong proponent of expository preaching, a dispensationalist and a self-described Calvinist. He has been acknowledged by Christianity Today as one of the most influential preachers of his time, and is a frequent guest on Larry King Live as representative of an evangelical Christian perspective.

MacArthur has authored or edited more than 150 books, most notably the MacArthur Study Bible, which has sold more than 1 million copies and received a Gold Medallion Book Award. Other best-selling books include his MacArthur New Testament Commentary Series (more than 1 million copies), Twelve Ordinary Men, (more than 500,000 copies), and the children's book A Faith to Grow On, which garnered an ECPA Christian Book Award.

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