Purpose in Prayer (6) ... Characteristics of Real Prayer

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 in Prayer, we learn how this is so important. Here are excerpts from chapter 6, Characteristics of Real Prayer.

"Christ puts importunity as a distinguishing characteristic of true praying. We must not only pray, but we must pray with great urgency, with intentness and with repetition. We must not only pray, but we must pray again and again. We must not get tired of praying. We must be thoroughly in earnest, deeply concerned about the things for which we ask, for Jesus Christ made it very plain that the secret of prayer and its success lie in its urgency. We must press our prayers upon God.

“Men ought to pray with full heartiness, and press the matter with vigorous energy and brave hearts.

“The widow, weak and helpless, is helplessness personified; bereft of every hope and influence which could move an unjust judge, she yet wins her case solely by her tireless and offensive importunity.We can do nothing without prayer. All things can be done by importunate prayer.

“Without continuance the prayer may go unanswered. Importunity is made up of the ability to hold on, to press on, to wait with unrelaxed and unrelaxable grasp, restless desire and restful patience. Importunate prayer is not an incident, but the main thing, not a performance but a passion, not a need but a necessity.

"Prayer in its highest form and grandest success assumes the attitude of a wrestler with God. It is the contest, trial and victory of faith; a victory not secured from an enemy, but from Him who tries our faith that He may enlarge it: that tests our strength to make us stronger.

“Our whole being must be in our praying; like John Knox, we must say and feel, “Give me Scotland, or I die.” Our experience and revelations of God are born of our costly sacrifice, our costly conflicts, our costly praying. The wrestling, all night praying, of Jacob made an era never to be forgotten in Jacob’s life, brought God to the rescue, changed Esau’s attitude and conduct, changed Jacob’s character, saved and affected his life and entered into the habits of a nation.

“Importunity, it may be repeated, is a condition of prayer. We are to press the matter, not with vain repetitions, but with urgent repetitions. We repeat, not to count the times, but to gain the prayer. We cannot quit praying because heart and soul are in it. We pray “with all perseverance.” We hang to our prayers because by them we live.

“There is not the least doubt that much of our praying fails for lack of persistency. It is without the fire and strength of perseverance. Persistence is of the essence of true praying.

“Our prayers are weak because they are not impassioned by an unfailing and resistless will.
"God loves the importunate pleader, and sends him answers that would never have been granted but for the persistency that refuses to let go until the petition craved for is granted.

For more on characteristics of Real Prayer,
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/bounds/purpose.VI.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.