From My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers
The Undetected Sacredness of Circumstances
"All your circumstances are in the hand of God, and therefore you don't ever have to think they are unnatural or unique. Your part in intercessory prayer is not to agonize over how to intercede, but to use the everyday circumstances and people God puts around you by His providence to bring them before His throne, and to allow the Spirit in you the opportunity to intercede for them. In this way God is going to touch the whole world with His saints...I must keep my conscious life as a sacred place for the Holy Spirit. Then as I lift different ones to God through prayer, the Holy Spirit intercedes for them. Your intercessions can never be mine, and my intercessions can never be yours,"...but the Spirit Himself makes intercessions" in each our lives (Rom 8:26). And without that intercession, the lives of others would be left in poverty and in ruin."

The Unrivaled Power of Prayer
"The Spirit of God uses the nature of the believer as a temple in which to offer His prayers of intercession. "...Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit..." 1 Cor 6:19. When Jesus Christ cleansed the temple, "...He would not allow anyone to carry wares through the temple" Mark 11:16. The Spirit of God will not allow you to use your body for your own convenience. Jesus ruthlessly cast out everyone who bought and sold in the temple, and said, "My house shall be called a house of prayer...but you have made it a den of thieves" Mark 11:17. We must keep our temple undefiled for Him. He will be responsible for the unconscious part which we don't know, but we must pay careful attention to and guard the conscious part for which we are responsible."

Like the apostles in Acts, I want to be devoted to prayer and the word. I must first make sure my relationship with Jesus is right, that there is no unrepentant sin, that I have met with Him first in intimacy, before I pray for Him to act. I want to know Him and know what He wants me to pray. I have been so convicted that my prayers have often not been centered around Christ. How often do I fail to quiet my heart, to be still and know that HE is God, before I enter HIS throne of grace? He has been reminding me once again that it is for Him and not myself.