The following are excerps from E.M. Bounds classic collection on Prayer:
Prayer governs our conduct, and conduct makes our character. Conduct is what we DO, character is what we ARE. Conduct is our outward life, whereas character is the unseen life that is hidden within, yet shown by what is seen.
Christ insists on not just works of charity and deeds of mercy, but inward spiritual character. In all of Paul's epistles, the leading theme is the insistence of holiness of heart and righteousness of life. It is the condition of the human heart and the blamelessness of the personal life that form the burden of his writings.
The church's mission is to change human nature. It does so by changing character, influencing behavior, and revolutionizing conduct. The church should be engaged in turning people to righteousness.
PRAYER produces cleanliness of heart and purity of life. It can produce nothing else. Unrighteous conduct is born of prayerlessness. Prayer and sinning cannot keep company with each other. Get people to pray, and they will quit sinning. Prayer creates a distaste for sinning, and works on our heart until doing evil becomes repulsive.
Bad living means bad praying, and in the end, no praying at all. The weakness of living grows out of the shallowness and shoddiness of character.
Righteous character and Christlike conduct give us a peculiar and preferential standing in prayer before God.
Praying that does not result in right thinking and right living, is a farce. We have missed the whole concern of prayer if it fails to purge character and correct conduct. Our prayer advances in power only so far as it corrects the life. As the life is, so the praying will be.
It is always the "prayer of the righteous man which availeth much." To have an eye for God's Glory, to be possessed by an earnest desire to please Him in all our ways, to possess hands that are busy in His service, and have feet swift to run in the way of His commandments, these give weight, influence, and power to prayer and secure an audience with God!
So church, let us pray unceasingly, and pray in the Spirit on all occasions, with all kinds of prayers and requests, and keep on praying for all the saints. Pray with your mind, and pray in the Spirit, pray earnestly, thankfully, and pray joyfully. Pray and do not give up . . .
. . . for Prayer is the essence of our relationship with God and the very thing that promotes uprightness of heart and life.
LET US PRAY!
1 comment:
Yes, prayer should be the foundation of each day especially since, at it purest definition, it is communication with your heavenly Father God. How could I possibly be renewed in holiness and cleansed from the filth of a sinful world without time in His presence? He rubs off on me when I hang out with Him. Thank God.
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