These are revealed almost unconsciously. He writes (Rom. i. 9), "God is my witness, that without ceasing I make mention of you _always in my prayers_. For I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift, to the end ye may be established." Rom. x. 1, ix. 2, 3: "My _heart's desire and prayer to God_ for Israel is, that they may be saved"; "I have great heaviness and _continual sorrow of heart_; for I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren." 1 Cor. i. 4: "I thank my God _always_ on your behalf, for the grace of God which is given you by Jesus Christ." 2 Cor. vi. 4, 6: "Approving ourselves as the ministers of Christ, _in watchings_, _in fastings_." Gal. iv. 19: "My little children, of whom _I travail in birth again_ till Christ be formed in you." Eph. i. 16: "_I cease not_ to give thanks for you, making mention of you _in my prayers_." Eph. iii. 14: "_I bow my knees_ to the Father, that He would grant you to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man." Phil. i. 3, 4, 8, 9: "I thank my God _upon every remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine_ making request for you all with joy. For God is my record, how greatly I long after you all in the bowels of Jesus Christ. And this _I pray_"--Col. i. 3, 9: "We give thanks to God, _praying always for you_. For this cause also, since the day we heard it, we _do not cease to pray for you_, and to desire"--Col. ii. 1: "I would that ye knew what _great conflict_ I have for you, and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh." 1 Thess. i. 2: "We give thanks to God _always_ for you all, making mention of you _in our prayers_." iii. 9: "We joy for your sakes before God; _night and day praying exceedingly_ that we might perfect that which is lacking in your faith." 2 Thess. i. 3: "We are bound to thank God _always_ for you. Wherefore also _we always pray_ for you." 2 Tim. i. 3: "I thank God, that _without ceasing_ I have remembrance of thee night and day." Philem. 4: "I thank my God, making mention of thee _always in my prayers_."
These passages taken together give us the picture of a man whose words, "Pray without ceasing," were simply the expression of his daily life. He had such a sense of the insufficiency of simple conversion; of the need of the grace and the power of heaven being brought down for the young converts in prayer; of the need of much and unceasing prayer, day and night, to bring it down; of the certainty that prayer would bring it down--that his life was continual and most definite prayer. He had such a sense that everything must come from above, and such a faith that it would come in answer to prayer, that prayer was neither a duty nor a burden, but the natural turning of the heart to the only place whence it could possibly obtain what it sought for others.