Power through Prayer - E.M. Bounds

  • 12 years ago
E.M Bounds playlist: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=1C2D7BDBD4B96BD5 Power through Prayer - E.M. Bounds ""Natural ability and educational advantages do not figure as factors in this matter; but capacity for faith, the ability to pray, the power for thorough consecration, the ability of self-littleness, an absolute losing of one's self in God's glory, and an ever-present and insatiable yearning and seeking after all the fullness of God--men who can set the Church ablaze for God; not in a noisy, showy way, but with an intense and quiet heat that melts and moves everything for God." Note the factors that are prerequisites in a man that E.M. Bounds say's "can set the Church ablaze for God" through prayer. Some relevant verses to meditate on: John 15:7 "If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you." John 9:31 "We know that God does not hear sinners; but if anyone is God-fearing and does His will, He hears him." Psalm 34:15 "The eyes of the LORD are toward the righteous And His ears are open to their cry." Psalm 66:18 "If I regard wickedness in my heart, The Lord will not hear;" Yes, remember to pray always...but remember that dying to self and living an abiding life in Christ is what gives prayer its power. Galatians 2:20 "I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me." Can you stand with the apostle Paul in proclaiming, without hesitance, that you too "no longer live, but it is Christ who lives in you?" I ask this not from a seat of judgment, or as one who "has already attained (Phil 3:12)," but rather that I may encourage my brethren to examine themselves always. Edward M. Bounds - (1835-1913), American Methodist minister and author. Edward McKendree Bounds was trained and apprenticed as an attorney, but instead of pursuing a legal career, he entered the ministry in his early twenties. In 1859 he was ordained as pastor of the the Monticello Methodist Church in Missouri. Bounds was a chaplain in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. He was captured by the Union Army in Franklin, Tennessee and later released. After his release, he strove to build up the spiritual state of Franklin by starting weekly prayer sessions. Bounds was an associate editor of the official Methodist newspaper, The Christian Advocate, and is best known for his numerous books on the subject of prayer. "Edward McKendree Bounds did not merely pray well that he might write well about prayer. He prayed because the needs of the world were upon him. He prayed, for long years, upon subjects which the easy-going Christian rarely gives a thought, and for objects which men of less thought and faith are always ready to call impossible. From his solitary prayer-vigils, year by year, there arose teaching equaled by few men in modern Christian history. He wrote transcendently about prayer, because he was himself, transcendent in its practice. "As breathing is a physical reality to us so prayer was a reality for Bounds. He took the command, 'Pray without ceasing' almost as literally as animate nature takes the law of the reflex nervous system, which controls our breathing." -Claude Chilton, Jr., in the Foreword to Necessity of Prayer . http://www.gracefellowshipintl.com Hymns:" Brightest and Best of the Stars " played on pipe organ