E. M. Bounds on Prayer

One of my closest “deceased mentors” is E. M. Bounds—I’ve read his works often enough to feel like I know him, or at least his heart. Pastor Bounds lived in the nineteenth century and was unusually gifted at praying and teaching on prayer. In fact, you can purchase all of his works on prayer in one volume, hard-cover, for about $10—and I think you should. Since I am preaching this morning on the place of prayer in the lives of believers, I could not help but let this gifted pastor speak to us today. What follows, then, is one of my favorite passages on prayer and the Word of God from The Necessity of Prayer (Baker Books: 1990, 67-68).

“The Word of God is a great help in prayer. If it be lodged and written in our hearts, it will form an out-flowing current of prayer, full and irresistible. Promises, stored in the heart, are to be the fuel from which prayer receives life and warmth, just as the coal, stored in the earth, ministers to our comfort on stormy days and wintry nights. The Word of God is the food by which prayer is nourished and made strong. Prayer, like man, cannot live by bread alone, ‘but by every word which proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord.’

“Unless the vital forces of prayer are supplied by God’s Word, prayer, though earnest and even vociferous in its urgency, is in reality flabby, vapid, and void. The absence of the vital force in praying can be traced to the absence of a constant supply of God’s Word by which to repair the waste, and renew the life. He who would learn to pray well, must first study God’s Word, and store it in his memory and thought.

“When we consult God’s Word, we find that no duty is more binding, more exacting, than that of prayer. On the other hand, we discover that no privilege is more exalted, no habit more richly owned of God. No promises are more radiant, more abounding, more explicit, more often reiterated, than those which are attached to prayer.”

Amen, Pastor Bounds! May we learn, then, to delight in the Word of God and pray without ceasing.

Growing with you in my passion for prayer and the Word,

Pastor Charlie