The Complete Works of E. M. Bounds: Power Through Prayer, The Reality of Prayer, The Essentials of Prayer, The Weapon of Prayer, Satan: His Personality, Power And Overthrow and More

by E.M. Bounds

This is what is to be constantly and earnestly prayed for. It is that we may be made holy. Not that we must make ourselves holy, but we must be cleansed from all sin by the precious atoning blood of Christ, and be made holy by the direct agency of the Holy Spirit.

Not that we are to do holy, but rather to be holy. Being must precede doing.

The work of God in the world is the implantation, the growth and the perfection of holiness in His people.

Of course men of intelligence are greatly needed in the pulpit, but prior to that, and primary to it, is the fact that we need holy men to stand before dying men and proclaim the salvation of God to them.

If the Church does not do this sort of work--if the Church does not advance its members in holiness of heart and life--then all our show of activities and all our display of Church work are a delusion and a snare.

If we are not growing in holiness, then we are doing nothing religious nor abiding.

Material prosperity may easily blind the eyes of Church leaders, so much so that they will make it a substitute for spiritual prosperity.

Prosperity in money matters does not signify growth in holiness.

If the Church is making advances on the lines of deep spirituality--if we are a praying people, noted for our prayer habits--if our people are hungering after holiness--then let us ask, why do we now have so few mighty outpourings of the Holy Spirit on our chief churches and our principal appointments?

There can be but one solution for all this state of things. We have cultivated other things to the neglect of the work of holiness. We have permitted our minds to be preoccupied with material things in the Church. Unfortunately, whether designedly or not, we have substituted the external for the internal. We have put that which is seen to the front and shut out that which is unseen.

As praying and holiness go together, so the decline of one, means the decay of the other.

The Church is not turning out praying men and women, because the Church is not intently engaged in the one great work of holiness.

The chief ones occupy positions of responsibility. As they go, so goes the Church.

The pastors come next in his catalogue. When the chief shepherds and those who are under them, the immediate pastors, stay their advance in holiness, the panic will reach to the end of the line.

One statement of Wesley needs to be repeated with emphasis. The littleness of grace, rather than the smallness of gifts,--this is largely the case with the preachers. It may be stated as an axiom: That the work of God fails as a general rule, more for the lack of grace, than for the want of gifts.

"What is our calling's glorious hope But inward holiness? For this to Jesus I look up, I calmly wait for this. "I wait till He shall touch me clean, Shall life and power impart; Give me the faith that casts out sin, And purifies the heart."

He works through His Church collectively and through His people individually.

The world judges religion not by what the Bible says, but by how Christians live. Christians are the Bible which sinners read. These are the epistles to be read of all men.

The praying fitness seems not to be taken into account, when it was just otherwise in all of God's movements and in all of His plans. He looked for holy men, those noted for their praying habits. Prayer leaders are scarce. Prayer conduct is not counted as the highest qualification for offices in the Church.

Men can do many good things and yet not be holy in heart and righteous in conduct. They can do many good things and lack that spiritual quality of heart called holiness.

"O may I still from sin depart; A wise and understanding heart, Jesus, to me to be given; And let me through thy Spirit know To glorify my God below, And find my way to heaven."

Prayer and consecration are closely related. Prayer leads up to, and governs consecration. Prayer is precedent to consecration, accompanies it, and is a direct result of it.

Prayer is the one thing prominent in a consecrated life.

Consecration is much more than a life of so-called service. It is a life of personal holiness, first of all. It is that which brings spiritual power into the heart and enlivens the entire inner man. It is a life which ever recognises God, and a life given up to true prayer.

Consecration is the voluntary set dedication of one's self to God, an offering definitely made, and made without any reservation whatever.

Almighty God is in view and He is the end of all consecration. It is a separation of one's self to God, a devotement of all that he is and has to a sacred use.

Consecration has a sacred nature. It is devoted to holy ends. It is the voluntary putting of one's self in God's hands to be used sacredly, holily, with sanctifying ends in view.

Consecration is not so much the setting one's self apart from sinful things and wicked ends, but rather it is the separation from worldly, secular and even legitimate things, if the...

The consecration which meets God's demands and which He accepts is to be full, complete, with no mental reservation, with nothing withheld. It cannot be partial, any more than a whole burnt offering in Old Testament times could have been partial.

So to make a half-hearted, partial consecration is to make no consecration at all, and is to fail utterly in securing the Divine acceptance.

Consecration is the human side of holiness. In this sense, it is self-sanctification, and only in this sense. Sanctification or holiness in its truest and highest sense is Divine, the act of the Holy Spirit working in the heart, making it clean and putting therein in a higher degree the fruits of the Spirit.

Consecration being the intelligent, voluntary act of the believer, this act is the direct result of praying.

Prayerlessness and consecration have nothing whatever in common.

Praying makes consecrated people. It cannot make any other sort. It drives to this end. It aims at this very purpose.

A prayerless life which claims consecration is a misnomer, false, counterfeit.

Consecration is really the setting apart of one's self to a life of prayer.

As prayer is the condition of full consecration, so prayer is the habit, the rule, of him who has dedicated himself wholly to God. Prayer is becoming in the consecrated life. Prayer is no strange thing in such a life.

No consecration is worth a thought if it be devoid of prayer.

God wants consecrated men because they can pray and will pray.

God wants consecrated men because He wants praying men.

Prayer is the tool with which the consecrated man works.

Prayer helps the consecrated man in maintaining his attitude of consecration, keeps him alive to God, and aids him in doing the work to which he is ...

"Let Him to whom we now belong His sovereign right assert; And take up every thankful song, And every loving heart. "He justly claims us for His own, Who bought us with a price; The Christian lives to Christ alone, To Christ alone he dies."

The present-day Church is filled with machinery, organisations, committees and societies, so much so that the power it has is altogether insufficient to run the machinery, or to furnish life sufficient to do all this external work. Consecration has a much higher and nobler end than merely to expend itself in these external things.

We must mention a truth which is strangely overlooked in these days by what are called personal workers, that in the Epistles of Paul and others, it is not what are called Church activities which are brought to the front, but rather the personal life. It is good behaviour, righteous conduct, holy living, godly conversation, right tempers--things which belong primarily to the personal life in religion. Everywhere this is emphasised, put in the forefront, made much of and insisted on. Religion first of all puts one to living right. Religion shows itself in the life. Thus is religion to prove its reality, its sincerity and its Divinity.

"So let our lips and lives express The holy Gospel we profess; So let our works and virtues shine To prove the doctrine all Divine. "Thus shall we best proclaim abroad The honors of our Saviour God; When the salvation reigns within And grace subdues the power of sin."

The first great end of consecration is holiness of heart and of life. It is to glorify God, and this can be done in no more effectual way than by a holy life...

As holiness of heart and of life is thoroughly impregnated with prayer, so consecration and prayer are closely allied in personal religion. It takes prayer to bring one into such a consecrated life of holiness to the Lord, and it takes prayer to maintain such a life.

Holy people are praying people. Holiness of heart and life puts people to praying. Consecration puts people to praying in earnest.

Holiness thrives in the place of secret prayer.