E.M. Bounds

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21.) Prayer and Character and Conduct
      PRAYER governs conduct, and conduct makes character. Conduct is what we do; character is what we are. Conduct is the outward life. Character is the life unseen, hidden within, yet evidenced by that which is seen. Conduct is external, seen from without; character is internal-operating within. In the economy of grace conduct is the offspring of chara ...read more

22.) Prayer and Consecration
      WHEN we study the many-sidedness of prayer, we are surprised at the number of things with which it is connected. There is no phase of human life which it does not affect, and it has to do with everything affecting human salvation. Prayer and consecration are closely related. Prayer leads up to, and governs consecration. Prayer is precedent to conse ...read more

23.) Prayer and Desire
      DESIRE is not merely a simple wish; it is a deep seated craving; an intense longing, for attainment. in the realm of spiritual affairs, it is an important adjunct to prayer. So important is it, that one might say, almost, that desire is an absolute essential of prayer. Desire precedes prayer, accompanies it, is followed by it. Desire goes before pr ...read more

24.) Prayer and Devotion
      DEVOTION has a religious signification. The root of devotion is to devote to a sacred use. So that devotion in its true sense has to do with religious worship. It stands intimately connected with true prayer. Devotion is the particular frame of mind found in one entirely devoted to God. It is the spirit of reverence, of awe, of godly fear. It is a ...read more

25.) Prayer and Devotion United
      There is a manifest want of spiritual influence on the ministry of the present day. I feel it in my own case and I see it in that of others. I am afraid there is too much of a low, managing, contriving, maneuvering temper of mind among us. We are laying ourselves out more than is expedient to meet one man's taste and another man's prejudices. The m ...read more

26.) Prayer and Divine Providence
      PRAYER and the divine providence are closely related. They stand in close companionship. They cannot possibly be separated. So closely connected are they that to deny one is to abolish the other. Prayer supposes a providence, while providence is the result of and belongs to prayer. All answers to prayer are but the intervention of the providence of ...read more

27.) Prayer and Divine Providence (continued)
      Two kinds of providences are seen in God's dealings with men, direct providences and permissive providences. God orders some things, others he permits. But when he permits an afflictive dispensation to come into the life of I' his saint, even though it originates in a wicked mind, and it is the act of a sinner, yet before it strikes his saint and t ...read more

28.) Prayer and Faith
      IN any study of the principles and procedure of prayer, of its activities and enterprises, first place, must, of necessity, be given to faith. It is the initial quality in the heart of any man who essays to talk to the unseen. He must, out of sheer helplessness, stretch forth hands of faith. He must believe, where he cannot prove. In the ultimate i ...read more

29.) Prayer and Faith (continued)
      Genuine, authentic faith must be definite and free of doubt. Not simply general in character; not a mere belief in the being, goodness, and power of God, but a faith which believes that the things which "he saith, shall come to pass." As the faith is specific, so the answer likewise will be definite: "He shall have whatsoever he saith." Faith and p ...read more

30.) Prayer and Fervency
      PRAYER, without fervor, stakes nothing on the issue, because it has nothing to stake. It comes with empty hands. Hands, too, which are listless, as well as empty, which have never learned the lesson of clinging to the cross. Fervorless prayer has no heart in it; it is an empty thing, an unfit vessel. Heart, soul, and life, must find place in all ...read more

31.) Prayer and God's Work
      GOD has a great work on hand in this world. This work is involved in the plan of salvation. It embraces redemption and providence. God is governing this world, with its intelligent beings, for his own glory and for their good. What, then, is God's work in this world? Rather what is the end he seeks in his great work? It is nothing short of holiness ...read more

32.) Prayer and Humility
      To be humble is to have a low estimate of one's self. It is to be modest, lowly, with a disposition to seek obscurity. Humility retires itself from the public gaze. It does not seek publicity nor hunt for high places, neither does it care for prominence. Humility is retiring in its nature. Self-abasement belongs to humility. It is given to self-dep ...read more

33.) Prayer and Importunity
      OUR Lord Jesus declared that "men ought always to pray and not to faint," and the parable in which his words occur, was taught with the intention of saving men from faintheartedness and weakness in prayer. Our Lord was seeking to teach that laxity must be guarded against, and persistence fostered and encouraged. There can be no two opinions regardi ...read more

34.) Prayer and Importunity (continued)
      THE tenor of Christ's teachings, is to declare that men are to pray earnestly to pray with an earnestness that cannot be denied. Heaven has harkening ears only for the wholehearted, and the deeply earnest. Energy, courage, and persistent perseverance must back the prayers which heaven respects, and God hears. All these qualities of soul, so esse ...read more

35.) Prayer and Missions
      MISSIONS mean the giving of the gospel to those of Adam's fallen race who have never heard of Christ and his atoning death. It means the giving to others the opportunity to hear of salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, and allowing others to have a chance to receive, and accept the blessings of the gospel, as we have it in christianized lands. I ...read more

36.) Prayer and Obedience
      UNDER the Mosaic law, obedience was looked upon as being "better than sacrifice, and to harken, than the fat of lambs." In Deuteronomy 5:29, Moses represents Almighty God declaring himself as to this very quality in a manner which left no doubt as to the importance he laid upon its exercise. Referring to the waywardness of his people he cries: O ...read more

37.) Prayer and Praying Men, 1 - PRAYING SAINTS OF THE OLD TESTAMENTS
      The Holy Spirit will give to the praying saint the brightness of an immortal hope, the music of a deathless song, in His baptism and communion with the heart, He will give sweeter and more enlarged visions of heaven until the taste for other things will pall, and other visions will grow dim and distant. He will put notes of other worlds in human he ...read more

38.) Prayer and Praying Men, 2 - PRAYING SAINTS OF THE OLD TESTAMENTS (Continued)
      Bishop Lambeth and Wainwright had a great M. E. Mission in Osaka, Japan. One day the order came from high up that no more meetings would be allowed in the city by Protestants. Lambeth and Wainwright did all they could but the high officials were obstinate and unrelenting. They then retired to the room of prayer. Supper time came and the Japanese gi ...read more

39.) Prayer and Praying Men, 3 - ABRAHAM, THE MAN OF PRAYER
      Oh for determined men and women, who will rise early and really burn out for God. Oh for a faith that will sweep into heaven with the early dawning of the morning and have ships from a shoreless sea loaded in the soul's harbor ere the ordinary laborer has knocked the dew from his scythe or the huckster has turned from his pallet of straw to spread ...read more