Purpose in Prayer (3) ... More and Better Praying the Secret to Success

by Dale Shumaker
Spirit Savvy Network
www.spiritsavvy.net

Finding your mission,
Empowering your life through prayer
Becoming a Missionary in the Marketplace
Leading others to be Missionaries in the Marketplace

In prayer we have the greatest privilege of God's Presence and interacting with God with His purpose than any other activity in our lives. E. M. Bounds in his book, the Purpose of Prayer, we learn how this is so important. Here are excerpts from chapter 3, "More and Better Praying the Secret of Success."

"Ever are the prayers of holy men streaming up to God as fragrant as the richest incense. And God in many ways is speaking to us, declaring his wealth and our impoverishment. “I am the Maker of all things; the wealth and glory are Mine. Command ye Me.” The dispensations of God depend on man’s ability to pray. 

"Its office is to pray. Its prayer life is the highest life, the most odorous, the most conspicuous. The Book of Revelation says nothing about prayer as a great duty, a hallowed service, but much about prayer in its aggregated force and energies. It is the prayer force ever living and ever praying; it is all saints’ prayers going out as a mighty, living energy.

"Prayer is the one prime, eternal condition by which the Father is pledged to put the Son in possession of the world. Christ prays through His people. 

"We do more of everything else than of praying. As poor as our giving is, our contributions of money exceed our offerings of prayer. We emphasize other things more than we do the necessity of prayer.

"The driving power, the conquering force in God’s cause is God Himself. “Call upon Me and I will answer you and show you great and mighty things which you do not know," is God’s challenge to prayer. Prayer puts God in full force into God’s work. “Ask of Me things to come, concerning My sons, and concerning the work of My hands command ye Me”—God’s carte blanche to prayer.

"Our paucity in results, the cause of all leanness, is solved by the Apostle James—“Ye have not, because ye ask not. Ye ask and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may spend it on your pleasures.”

For more on more and better prayer,
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/bounds/purpose.III.html
The Christian Classics Ethereal Library features many books by the Christians who walked in the very power of the Holy Spirit throughout the ages.