Skip to content ↓

The Most Important Part of Every Prayer

No Trite Prayer

Sometimes custom causes us to neglect beauty. Sometimes we are so used to doing or saying something that we forget the sheer wonder of it. Such may be the case when we end our prayers with the words, “for Christ’s sake” or “for Jesus’ sake.” Don’t miss what De Witt Talmage has to say about these simple words.

The most important part of every prayer is the last three or four words of it—” For Christ’s sake.” Do not rattle off those words as though they were merely the finishing stroke of the prayer. They are the most important part of the prayer.

When in earnestness you go before God, and say—” For Christ’s sake,” it rolls in, as it were, upon God’s mind all the memories of Bethlehem and Golgotha.

When you say before God— “For Christ’s sake,” you hold before God’s mind every groan, every tear, every crimson drop of His only begotten Son.

If there is anything in all the universe that will move God to an act of royal benefaction, it is to say—”For Christ’s sake.”

If a little child should kneel behind God’s throne and should say—” For Christ’s sake,” the great Jehovah would turn around on His throne to look at her and listen. No prayer ever gets to Heaven but for Christ’s sake. No soul is ever comforted but for Christ’s sake. The world was never redeemed, but for Christ’s sake.

Our name, however illustrious it may be among men, before God stands only for inconsistency and sin; but there is a name, a potent name, a blessed name, a glorious name an everlasting name, that we may put upon our lips as a sacrament, and upon our forehead as a crown, and that is the name of Jesus…


  • A La Carte Collection cover image

    A La Carte (March 17)

    A La Carte: A public servant faces a public death / John Piper on standing with Israel / Small investments with big returns for parents / How hatred ate me alive / Poverty doesn’t always look like you think / and more.

  • A La Carte Collection cover image

    A La Carte (March 16)

    A La Carte: Carl Trueman on James Talarico / In honor of John M. Perkins / The Chosen / Sincerity, sarcasm, and the memeification of life / The bad news we still need / Venting vs complaining / Kindle deals / and more.

  • Pleasure Obligation

    A Pleasure More Than An Obligation

    Christians are often portrayed as downcast and dour, as people who are trapped in a system of beliefs that robs them of joy and life. And with a bit of honest self-examination, we can probably think of times when we have fit the cliché.

  • A La Carte Collection cover image

    Weekend A La Carte (March 14)

    A La Carte: The West’s strange genius / Healing the way women hurt each other / AI skeptics / The world after reading / What about the children? / What caregivers should know about dementia / and much more.