Shoes divide men into three classes. Some men wear their father's shoes. They make no decisions of their own. Some are unthinkingly shod by the crowd. The strong man is his own cobbler. He insists on making his own choices. He walks in his own shoes.

Jesus is God spelling Himself out in language that men can understand.

You can do more than pray after you have prayed, but you cannot do more than pray until you have prayed.

Prayer does not influence God. Prayer surely does influence God. It does not influence His purpose. It does influence His action.

Spirit discernment is rare because it is expensive. It means a sensitive conscience, an instructed understanding through study of the Book of God. It means a passion for purity, for truth, for the right, for Christ Himself, and for living uncompromisingly true in the daily habit. All this lies back of a seeing spirit eye. And these things cost. Discernment is expensive.

It takes power for the man of God in the pulpit to speak plainly about particular sins before the faces of those who are living in them; and still more power to do it with the rare tactfulness and tenderness of the Galilean preacher.

Prayer is repeating the victor's name (Jesus) into the ears of Satan and insisting on his retreat.