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by
E.M. Bounds
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April 22, 2020 - July 22, 2021
Faith does the impossible because it brings God to undertake for us, and nothing is impossible with God.
Prayer projects faith on God, and God on the world. Only God can move mountains, but faith and prayer move God.
Faith is the foundation of Christian character and the security of the soul.
The faith which creates powerful praying is the faith which centers itself on a powerful person. Faith in Christ’s ability to do and to do greatly, is the faith which prays greatly.
“Believe ye that I am able to do this?” They said unto him, “Yea, Lord.” Then touched he their eyes, saying, “According to your faith be it unto you.”
There is bound to be much delay and long days of waiting for true faith, but faith accepts the conditions—knows there will be delays in answering prayer, and regards such delays as times of testing, in the which, it is privileged to show its mettle, and the stern stuff of which it is made.
Delay is often the test and the strength of faith.
Patience has its perfect work in the school of delay. In some instances, delay is of the very essence of the prayer. God has to do many things, antecedent to giving the final answer—things which are essential to the lasting good of him who is requesting favor at his hands.
Jacob prayed, with point and ardor, to be delivered from Esau. But before that prayer could be answered, there was much to be done with, and for Jacob. He must be changed, as well as Esau. Jacob had to be made into a new man, before Esau could be. Jacob had to be converted to God, before Esau could be converted to Jacob.
Amazing lesson, of wondrous simplicity, is this praying in the name of the Lord Jesus! All other conditions are depreciated, everything else is renounced, save Jesus only. The name of Christ—the person of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ—must be supremely sovereign, in the hour and article of prayer.
If Jesus dwells at the fountain of my life; if the currents of his life have displaced and superseded all self-currents; if implicit obedience to him is the inspiration and force of every movement of my life, then he can safely commit the praying to my will, and pledge himself, by an obligation as profound as his own nature, that whatsoever is asked shall be granted.
Faith covers temporal as well as spiritual needs. Faith dispels all undue anxiety and needless care about what shall be eaten, what shall be drunk, what shall be worn. Faith lives in the present, and regards the day as being sufficient unto the evil thereof. It lives day by day, and dispels all fears for the morrow. Faith brings great ease of mind and perfect peace of heart.
Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusted in thee.
True prayers are born of present trials and present needs. Bread, for today, is bread enough. Bread given for today is the strongest sort of pledge that there will be bread tomorrow. Victory today, is the assurance of victory tomorrow. Our prayers need to be focused upon the present. We must trust God today, and leave the morrow entirely with him. The present is ours; the future belongs to God. Prayer is the task and duty of each recurring day—daily prayer for daily needs.
As every day demands its bread, so every day demands its prayer. No amount of praying, done today, will suffice for tomorrow’s praying.
Faith and prayer select the things, and God commits himself to do the very things which faith and persevering prayer nominate, and petition him to accomplish.
A faith which grasps and holds in its keeping the very things it asks for, without wavering, doubt or fear—that is the faith we need—faith, such as is a pearl of great price, in the process and practice of prayer.
Faith is an operation of God, a divine illumination, a holy energy implanted by the Word of God and the Spirit in the human soul—a spiritual, divine principle which takes of the supernatural and makes it a thing apprehendable by the faculties of time and sense.
God is the great objective of faith; for faith rests its whole weight on his Word.
The nature and meaning of faith is more demonstrable in what it does, than it is by reason of any definition given it.
Many men, of this day, obtain a good report because of their money-giving, their great mental gifts and talents, but few there be who obtain a “good report” because of their great faith in God, or because of the wonderful things which are being wrought through their great praying.
Doubt and fear are the twin foes of faith. Sometimes, they actually usurp the place of faith, and although we pray, it is a restless, disquieted prayer that we offer, uneasy and often complaining.
It is no credit to any man’s mental capacity to cherish doubt of God, and no comfort can possibly derive from such a thought. Our eyes should be taken off self, removed from our own weakness and allowed to rest implicitly upon God’s strength.
It was claimed for Augustus Cæsar that he found Rome a city of wood, and left it a city of marble. The pastor who succeeds in changing his people from a prayerless to a prayerful people, has done a greater work than did Augustus in changing a city from wood to marble.
For he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
The eye and presence of God give vigorous life to trust, just as the eye and the presence of the sun make fruit and flower to grow, and all things glad and bright with fuller life.
Our Lord puts trust as the very foundation of praying. The background of prayer is trust. The whole issuance of Christ’s ministry and work was dependent on implicit trust in his Father. The center of trust is God. Mountains of difficulties, and all other hindrances to prayer are moved out of the way by trust and his virile henchman, faith. When trust is perfect and without doubt, prayer is simply the outstretched hand, ready to receive. Trust perfected, is prayer perfected. Trust looks to receive the thing asked for—and gets it. Trust is not a belief that God can bless, that he will bless, but
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Neglect of the inner chamber is the solution of most spiritual failure.
To be much on our knees in private communion with God is the only surety that we shall have him with us either in our personal struggles, or in our efforts to convert sinners.
God draws mightily near to the praying soul. To see God, to know God, and to live for God—these form the objective of all true praying. Thus praying is, after all, inspired to seek after God. Prayer-desire is inflamed to see God, to have clearer, fuller, sweeter, and richer revelation of God. So to those who thus pray, the Bible becomes a new Bible, and Christ a new savior, by the light and revelation of the inner chamber.
Nothing distinguishes the children of God so clearly and strongly as prayer. It is the one infallible mark and test of being a Christian. Christian people are prayerful, the worldly-minded, prayerless. Christians call on God; worldlings ignore God, and call not on his name. But even the Christian had need to cultivate continual prayer. Prayer must be habitual, but much more than a habit. It is duty, yet one which rises far above, and goes beyond the ordinary implications of the term. It is the expression of a relation to God, a yearning for divine communion. It is the outward and upward flow
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Prayer has everything to do with molding the soul into the image of God, and has everything to do with enhancing and enlarging the measure of divine grace. It has everything to do with bringing the soul into complete communion with God. It has everything to do with enriching, broadening and maturing the soul’s experience of God. That man cannot possibly be called a Christian, who does not pray.
The praying which influences God is declared to be that of the fervent, effectual outpouring of a righteous man. That is to say, it is prayer on fire, having no feeble, flickering flame, no momentary flash, but shining with a vigorous and steady glow.
God finds faith in his praying child—the faith which stays and cries—and he honors it by permitting its further exercise, to the end that it is strengthened and enriched. Then he rewards it by granting the burden of its plea, in plenitude and finality.
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.
Asking, seeking, knocking, are ascending rounds in the ladder of successful prayer. No principle is more definitely enforced by Christ than that prevailing prayer must have in it the quality which waits and perseveres, the courage that never surrenders, the patience which never grows tired, the resolution that never wavers.
In Christ’s teaching, it is not simply works of charity and deeds of mercy upon which he insists, but inward spiritual character. This much is demanded, and nothing short of it, will suffice.
The church is God’s manufactory on earth, and its primary duty is to create and foster righteousness of character. This is its very first business. Primarily, its work is not to acquire members, nor amass numbers, nor aim at money-getting, nor engage in deeds of charity and works of mercy, but to produce righteousness of character, and purity of the outward life.
Get men to pray, and they will quit sinning, because prayer creates a distaste for sinning, and so works upon the heart, that evil-doing becomes repugnant, and the entire nature is lifted to a reverent contemplation of high and holy things.
Feebleness of living reflects its debility and languor in the praying hours. We simply cannot talk to God, strongly, intimately, and confidently unless we are living for him, faithfully and truly.
We must learn this lesson well—that righteous character and Christlike conduct give us a peculiar and preferential standing in prayer before God. His
Praying, which does not result in right thinking and right living, is a farce. We have missed the whole office of prayer if it fail to purge character and rectify conduct. We have failed entirely to apprehend the virtue of prayer, if it bring not about the revolutionizing of the life.
Love delights to obey, and please whom it loves. There are no hardships in love. There may be exactions, but no irk. There are no impossible tasks for love.
An obedient life helps prayer. It speeds prayer to the throne. God cannot help hearing the prayer of an obedient child.
The absence of an obedient life makes prayer an empty performance, a mere misnomer.
If the will of God does not master the life, the praying will be nothing but sickly sentiment. If prayer does not inspire, sanctify and direct our work, then self-will enters, to ruin both work and worker.
The life to which Holy Scripture calls men is no picnic, or holiday junketing. It is no pastime, no pleasure jaunt. It entails effort, wrestling, struggling; it demands the putting forth of the full energy of the spirit in order to frustrate the foe and to come off, at the last, more than conqueror.
Prayer must diffuse all effort, impregnate all ventures, decide all issues. The Christian soldier must be as intense in his praying as in his fighting, for his victories will depend very much more on his praying than on his fighting.
God has committed himself, his purpose, and his promise to prayer.
Prayer may well be defined as that force which vitalizes and energizes the Word of God, by taking hold of God, himself. By taking hold of the promiser, prayer reissues, and makes personal the promise.
