Prayer is both a means of grace, but also an end in itself
(a verse from a recent prayer sermon by Piper and todays devo from Ozzie)

Jude 1:20
"But you, beloved, build yourselves up in your most holy faith; pray in the Holy Spirit; Keep yourselves in the love of God..."

"Prayer does not fit us for the greater works; prayer is the greater work.
We think of prayer as a common-sense exercise of our higher powers in order to "prepare us for God's work."
In the teaching of Jesus Christ, prayer is the working of the miracle of Redemption in me which produces the miracle of Redemption in others by the power of God. The way fruit remains is by prayer, but remember it is prayer based on the agony of Redemption, not on my agony.
Only a child gets prayer answered; a wise man does not.
Prayer is the battle; it is a matter of indifference where you are. Whichever way God engineers circumstances, the duty is to pray. Never allow the thought - "I am of no use where I am;" because you certainly can be of no use where you are not. Wherever God has dumped you down in circumstances pray to Him all the time. "Whatsoever ye ask in My name, that will I do." We won't pray unless we get thrills, that is the intensest form of spiritual selfishness. We have to labour along the line of God's direction, and He says pray. "Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that He will send forth labourers into His harvest."
There is nothing thrilling about a labouring man's work, but it is the labouring man who makes the conceptions of the genius possible; and it is the labouring saint who makes the conceptions of his Master possible. You labour at prayer and results happen all the time from His standpoint. What an astonishment it will be to find, when the veil is lifted, the souls that have been reaped by you, simply because you had been in the habit of taking your orders from Jesus Christ."

All I got for today, I think that I have to think about this one for a time, and a half a time.
:)

Jen2