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 | The Essentials of Prayer Ebook | |
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E-book Title: The Essentials of Prayer
Author: E. M. Bounds
Book Description: FOREWORD
The work of editing the Bounds Spiritual Life Books has been a labour of love which has brought great profit and blessing to my own soul. After years of close study of the literary remains of this great Christian, together with the work of other mystics, I am fully persuaded that to but few of the sons of men has there been given such spiritual power as was vouchsafed to Edward McKendree Bounds. Truly he was a burning and a shining light, and as The Sunday School Times says, "he was a specialist in prayer and his books are for the quiet hour, for careful meditation and for all who wish to seek and find the treasures of God".
It was my great privilege to know the author well, and also to know that his intention, in everything he wrote, was for the salvation of his readers. The Essentials of Prayer is sent forth in this spirit. May God bless it to many hearts and use it for the upbuilding and strengthening of Christian character through the length and breadth of the land.
Homer W. Hodge
Flushing, N.Y.
I. PRAYER TAKES IN THE WHOLE MAN
"Henry Clay Trumbull spoke forth the Infinite in the terms of our world, and the Eternal in the forms of our human life. Some years ago, on a ferry-boat, I met a gentleman who knew him, and I told him that when I had last seen Dr. Trumbull, a fortnight before, he had spoken of him. .Oh, yes,. said my friend, .he was a great Christian, so real, so intense. He was at my home years ago and we were talking about prayer....Why, Trumbull,. I said, .you don.t mean to say if you lost a pencil you would pray about it, and ask God to help you find it...Of course I would; of course I would,. was his instant and excited reply. Of course he would. Was not his faith a real thing? Like the Saviour, he put his doctrine strongly by taking an extreme illustration to embody his principle, but the principle was fundamental. He did trust God in everything. And the Father honoured the trust of His child". - Robert E. Speer
Prayer has to do with the entire man. Prayer takes in man in his whole being, mind, soul and body. It takes the whole man to pray, and prayer affects the entire man in its gracious results. As the whole nature of man enters into prayer, so also all that belongs to man is the beneficiary of prayer. All of man receives benefits in prayer. The whole man must be given to God in praying. The largest results in praying come to him who gives himself, all of himself, all that belongs to himself, to God. This is the secret of full consecration, and this is a condition of successful praying, and the sort of praying which brings the largest fruits.
The men of olden times who wrought well in prayer, who brought the largest things to pass, who moved God to do great things, were those who were entirely given over to God in their praying. God wants, and must have, all that there is in man in answering his prayers. He must have whole-hearted men through whom to work out His purposes and plans concerning men. God must have men in their entirety. No double-minded man need apply. No vacillating man can be used. No man with a divided allegiance to God, and the world and self, can do the praying that is needed.
Holiness is wholeness, and so God wants holy men, men whole-hearted and true, for His service and for the work of praying. .And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. These are the sort of men God wants for leaders of the hosts of Israel, and these are the kind out of which the praying class is formed.
Man is a trinity in one, and yet man is neither a trinity nor a dual creature when he prays, but a unit. Man is one in all the essentials and acts and attitudes of piety. Soul, spirit and body are to unite in all things pertaining to life and godliness.More... | 
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