R. A. Torrey’s How to Pray is not primarily a book about eloquent religious speech. It is a practical study of prayer as real approach to the living God. Torrey moves through the importance o:contentReference[oaicite:0]{index=0}edience, the name of Christ, the will of God, prayer in the Holy Ghost, perseverance, abiding, thanksgiving, hindrances, and finally the relationship between prayer and revival.
Scripture gives prayer this central place, but the Gospel also keeps prayer from becoming another system of spiritual performance. We do not pray in order to manufacture acceptance, earn righteousness, or persuade a reluctant Father to become good. We pray because Christ has opened access to God, the Father gives, the Holy Ghost helps our infirmities, and believers are invited to ask in faith. The power of prayer is therefore not found in the independent strength of the one praying, but in the God to whom prayer is offered.
Listen to How to Pray
R. A. Torrey • Complete Christian audiobook
Why Prayer Matters
Torrey begins by emphasizing the importance of prayer, and Scripture does the same. Paul describes prayer not as an occasional emergency measure but as part of the believer’s continual spiritual life. Prayer accompanies watchfulness, perseverance, thanksgiving, warfare, ministry, and fellowship with God.
The placement of this command in Ephesians 6 is significant. Paul has just described the whole armour of God, including truth, righteousness, faith, salvation, and the Word of God. Prayer is not detached from these realities; it is the living communion in which the believer stands, watches, receives, and participates.
Prayer matters because the Christian life is relational. God has not merely given principles and withdrawn. The believer has a Father, a risen Lord, an indwelling Spirit, and direct access through Christ.
Prayer Must Actually Be Unto God
One of Torrey’s strongest practical observations is that religious words are not automatically prayer. A person can speak familiar phrases, repeat requests, or participate publicly while scarcely attending to God Himself. Biblical prayer involves conscious approach to the One being addressed.
The phrase “unto God” is simple, yet it exposes the center. The church was not merely generating religious intensity. Their prayer had an object. They were approaching God concerning Peter.
This helps distinguish prayer from merely rehearsing anxiety. It is possible to spend twenty minutes thinking intensely about a problem while calling the process prayer. Genuine prayer turns from the problem toward God, even when the problem remains the subject of the request.
The Father Is Not Reluctant
Any serious teaching on prayer must begin with the character of God. If God is imagined as fundamentally unwilling, prayer becomes an attempt to overcome divine resistance through enough persistence, sacrifice, wording, or emotion. Jesus gives another picture.
Jesus reasons from human fatherhood toward the greater goodness of God. The question is not whether the Father can be persuaded to become generous. His goodness is the basis upon which asking becomes reasonable.
Prayer under grace therefore begins differently from prayer under condemnation. The condemned mind asks whether it has become worthy enough to approach. The son begins with the Father who gives.
Obedience and Prayer Without Returning to Law
Torrey devotes a chapter to obedience and prayer because Scripture does connect answered prayer with walking in agreement with God. That connection should be taken seriously. Yet it must not be reversed into the idea that human obedience purchases divine acceptance.
John’s statement belongs inside the larger theology of his letter. The same apostle says that we love because God first loved us. Obedience is therefore fruit of relationship rather than a transaction by which Adam earns the right to be heard.
This distinction matters because prayer can quietly become law-conscious. A believer fails, becomes afraid that God will no longer hear him, and then attempts to repair his standing through enough good behavior. The Gospel directs him back to Christ as righteousness while still allowing the Spirit to correct what needs correction.
Praying in the Name of Jesus
Torrey rightly gives substantial attention to prayer in the name of Christ. The phrase can become so familiar that Christians use it merely as a closing formula. Jesus presents His name as something much deeper.
To pray in Christ’s name is to approach through Him, on the basis of His standing rather than ours. His name carries His identity, authority, relationship with the Father, and finished work. Christian prayer therefore rests upon Christ rather than upon the independent worthiness of the petitioner.
This is why prayer in Jesus’ name should produce confidence without producing self-exaltation. The believer is invited to ask boldly, yet the confidence remains Christ-centered. The Father is glorified in the Son.
According to the Will of God
Torrey joins prayer in Christ’s name with prayer according to God’s will. That qualification is sometimes used to make every promise uncertain, as though faith should always expect nothing. John uses the will of God in precisely the opposite way: as the ground of confidence.
The purpose of learning God’s will is therefore not to eliminate confidence but to establish it. Scripture reveals many things God has already declared concerning wisdom, grace, forgiveness, provision, spiritual fruit, the Holy Ghost, righteousness, and His Kingdom. Where God has spoken clearly, faith does not need to treat His willingness as unknowable.
At the same time, faith does not make the individual omniscient. There are situations where we genuinely do not know what outcome is best. Scripture gives room for trust even there, because dependence upon God is deeper than certainty about every circumstance.
Praying in the Holy Ghost
Torrey describes prayer in the Spirit as central to powerful prayer. Scripture repeatedly uses this language. The Holy Ghost is not merely the subject of Christian doctrine; He actively helps the believer in prayer.
Paul makes this even more practical by admitting human weakness. We do not always understand what should be prayed for or how every situation should be interpreted. The Spirit meets the believer precisely at that point.
That verse removes an enormous burden. The effectiveness of Christian prayer does not finally depend upon possessing perfect information. Even where understanding is incomplete, the believer is not abandoned to an isolated mind.
Always Pray and Do Not Faint
Torrey strongly emphasizes persistence. Jesus explicitly teaches that men ought always to pray and not faint. Persistence matters because circumstances often appear unchanged after the first request.
Persistence should not be interpreted as overcoming the unwillingness of God. Jesus has already established the Father’s goodness. The point is that faith refuses to make delay the final testimony.
There is a difference between persistence and anxious repetition. Persistence continues trusting God. Anxiety repeats because it fears nothing happened the first time. One rests increasingly in God’s faithfulness while the other becomes preoccupied with whether the technique was performed correctly.
Abiding in Christ Changes Prayer
One of the deepest chapters in Torrey’s book concerns abiding. Jesus connects abiding directly with asking and receiving. This places prayer inside union with Christ rather than treating it as an isolated technique.
The branch does not manipulate the Vine. It receives life from the Vine. As the words of Christ abide within, desire, expectation, understanding, and action are increasingly shaped by that living relationship.
This is one of Scripture’s strongest safeguards against turning prayer into autonomous manifestation. The believer participates genuinely, asks boldly, and expects God to act, but Christ remains the Source. The branch never becomes its own vine.
Faith Is Not Faith in Faith
Torrey repeatedly emphasizes believing prayer. Scripture unmistakably teaches faith, yet faith itself can become another object of anxious self-examination. A person begins asking whether he believes strongly enough instead of asking whether God is faithful.
That short sentence establishes the object. Biblical faith does not ultimately trust the strength of its own mental state. It trusts God.
Jesus’ language about believing and receiving should be allowed to remain as strong as He gives it. But the command does not require believers to fear every passing doubt as though doubt itself were an omnipotent creative force. The man in Mark 9 brought even his unbelief to Christ.
Christ remained greater than the imperfection of the man’s faith. That is an important protection against turning faith into another form of condemnation.
Praying With Thanksgiving
Torrey gives thanksgiving its own chapter because Scripture repeatedly joins thanksgiving with prayer. Thanksgiving changes the posture of asking. It remembers God as giver rather than allowing present need to define His character.
Paul does not say that believers must pretend they have no requests. Requests are explicitly welcomed. Yet those requests are surrounded by thanksgiving because present lack does not erase previous grace or God’s continuing faithfulness.
Thanksgiving also helps move attention from scarcity toward remembrance. The believer recalls what God has done, who Christ is, what grace has already given, and what Scripture declares. Prayer then becomes less dominated by panic.
Hindrances to Prayer
Torrey addresses hindrances directly, including selfish motives, unbelief, unresolved sin, unforgiveness, and wrong relationships. Scripture does warn that attitudes and motives affect prayer. James, for example, confronts asking that is driven by lust.
The right response is not to become terrified of asking. It is to allow the request to reveal the heart. What do we believe the desired object will give us? Why does it matter? Is the request flowing from love, fear, competition, scarcity, stewardship, service, or the attempt to construct identity from an external result?
Scripture also connects forgiveness with prayer. A heart committed to accusation while seeking grace from God contains a contradiction that the Spirit may expose.
Yet even here grace governs the order. We do not forgive so that we can earn Christ. We forgive because grace has already shown us another way to live.
When Should We Pray?
Torrey asks when believers should pray and answers broadly because Scripture does. There are appointed times of prayer, urgent moments, seasons of decision, temptation, ministry, suffering, thanksgiving, and intercession. Yet Christian prayer also grows toward continual communion.
This does not require continuous audible speech. A person can work, drive, eat, rest, converse, and still live with the heart oriented toward God. Prayer increasingly becomes a relationship carried through ordinary life.
Jesus Himself prayed at decisive moments, sometimes withdrawing into solitude. The Gospels show prayer before major choices, during ministry, in suffering, and in communion with the Father. Prayer is therefore both deliberate practice and living relationship.
Prayer and Revival
The final chapters of Torrey’s book move toward revival. He argues that spiritual awakening repeatedly begins with people burdened to pray. Scripture certainly gives prayer an important place whenever the people of God seek renewed power, boldness, repentance, or Gospel advance.
The church prayed, God acted, the Holy Ghost filled, and bold witness followed. Prayer was real participation, but the church did not manufacture the power. God remained the Source of the increase.
That pattern is especially important when discussing revival. Christians may preach, pray, organize, serve, invite, teach, and labor. Those actions matter, but they do not turn human beings into the giver of spiritual life. God gives the increase.
Prayer Does Not Replace Action
A life of prayer is not a substitute for obedience. Nehemiah prayed and then acted. Paul prayed and preached. The apostles prayed for laborers and became laborers themselves. Prayer and participation belong together.
The error appears when either side becomes independent. Action without prayer can become self-sufficiency. Prayer without action can become religious avoidance when Scripture has already made the next faithful step clear.
Faith can ask God for provision while also working faithfully. It can pray for reconciliation while also speaking truth and forgiving. It can pray for opportunity while also walking through the door when it opens.
Christ Gives Access to the Father
The deepest foundation beneath Christian prayer is not finally a method but Christ’s finished work. Sin produced alienation, but Christ reconciles. The believer does not stand permanently outside trying to earn the right to enter.
The word “boldness” changes the entire atmosphere of prayer. Confidence does not come from imagining ourselves independently worthy. It comes from Jesus.
The throne is explicitly called the throne of grace. The believer comes to obtain mercy and find grace in time of need. Need itself is therefore not evidence that one should remain away.
The Risen Christ Still Intercedes
Prayer also belongs to resurrection. Jesus did not merely teach prayer during His earthly ministry and then disappear into history. Scripture says the risen Christ continues to intercede.
The phrase “ever liveth” is the foundation. Christian prayer approaches God through a living Christ. The One who intercedes is not defeated, absent, or dead.
Paul deliberately moves from death to resurrection. Prayer should therefore be shaped by the risen Christ, not by permanent consciousness of abandonment and defeat.
A Simple Practice for Prayer
Turn consciously toward God.
Before repeating the request, remember whom you are addressing. Let prayer become actual approach to the Father rather than extended meditation upon the problem.
Name the request clearly.
Tell God what you desire. Specific requests can expose the real issue beneath vague anxiety and help reveal what you are actually believing about the situation.
Search the Word.
Ask what Scripture says about the need, God’s character, your identity in Christ, and the promises that genuinely apply. Let faith rest upon testimony rather than imagination alone.
Ask in Christ’s name.
Approach through His standing rather than your independent worthiness. Remember that access to the Father rests upon Christ’s finished work.
Depend upon the Holy Ghost.
When you do not know how to pray as you ought, do not treat that weakness as the end of prayer. The Spirit helps our infirmities.
Continue with thanksgiving.
Persevere without allowing delay to redefine God’s character. Remember what has already been given and allow thanksgiving to accompany the request.
Act where obedience is clear.
Prayer does not eliminate participation. When Scripture and wisdom reveal a faithful next step, take it while leaving the increase with God.
The Central Principle
How to Pray remains useful because Torrey refuses to treat prayer as vague religious sentiment. He asks practical questions: To whom are we praying? What does obedience have to do with prayer? What does it mean to ask in Jesus’ name? How do the will of God, the Holy Ghost, perseverance, abiding, thanksgiving, and revival relate to answered prayer? Those questions keep prayer connected to the whole Christian life.
Scripture also gives the theological center that keeps those practices under grace. The Father gives. Christ opens access and intercedes. The Holy Ghost helps our weakness. Faith receives. Obedience follows relationship, thanksgiving remembers grace, and believers participate without becoming the independent source of the answer.
That sentence is simple enough to govern the entire subject. Prayer is not faith in our eloquence, faith in our emotional intensity, faith in our ability to believe perfectly, or faith in prayer itself. It is faith in God. The Christian learns to ask boldly because the Father is good, Christ is risen, access has been opened, the Spirit is present, and grace preserves God as the Source from beginning to end.