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E.M. Bounds Prayer Quotes

"What the Church needs to-day is not more machinery or better, not new organizations or more and novel methods, but men whom the Holy Ghost can use men of prayer, men mighty in prayer. The Holy Ghost does not flow through methods, but through men. He does not come on machinery, but on men. He does not anoint plans, but men, men of prayer."

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"I feel it is far better to begin with God, to see His face first, to get my soul near Him before it is near another. In general it is best to have at least one hour alone with God before engaging in anything else."

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"Prayer honors God, acknowledges His being, exalts His power, adores His providence, secures His aid."

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"He who is too busy to pray will be too busy to live a holy life. Satan had rather we let the grass grow on the path to our prayer chamber than anything else."

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"I think Christians fail so often to get answers to their prayers because they do not wait long enough on God. They just drop down and say a few words, and then jump up and forget it and expect God to answer them. Such praying always reminds me of the small boy ringing his neighbor's door-bell, and then running away as fast as he can go."

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"The first and last stages of holy living are crowned with praying."

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"No learning can make up for the failure to pray. No earnestness, no diligence, no study, no gifts will supply its lack."

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Prayer makes a godly man, and puts within him "the mind of Christ," the mind of humility, of self-surrender, of service, of pity, and of prayer. If we really pray, we will become more like God, or else we will quit praying.

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"No man can do a great and enduring work for God who is not a man of prayer, and no man can be a man of prayer who does not give much time to praying."

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"Prayer breaks all bars, dissolves all chains, opens all prisons, and widens all straits by which God's saints have been held."

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“Prayers are deathless. They outlive the lives of those who uttered them.”

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"That man cannot possibly be called a Christian, who does not pray."

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"We cannot talk to God strongly when we have not lived for God strongly. The closet cannot be made holy to God when the life has not been holy to God."

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"Prayer in Jesus' name puts the crowning crown on God, because it glorifies Him through the Son and it pledges the Son to give to men 'whatsoever and anything' they shall ask."

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“God shapes the world by prayer.”

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"Those who know God the best are the richest and most powerful in prayer. Little acquaintance with God, and strangeness and coldness to Him, make prayer a rare and feeble thing."

~ E.M. Bounds

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“Prayers outlive the lives of those who uttered them; outlive a generation, outlive an age, outlive a world.”

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“The prayers of God’s saints are the capital stock in heaven by which Christ carries on His great work upon earth.”

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“Ask of me is the one condition God puts in the very advance and triumph of His cause.”

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“The secret of success in Christ’s Kingdom is the ability to pray.”

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“The most important lesson we can learn is how to pray.”

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“The story of every great Christian achievement is the history of answered prayer.”

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“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.”

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“We do more of everything else than of praying.”

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“Walking with God down the avenues of prayer we acquire something of His likeness, and unconsciously we become witnesses to others of His beauty and His grace.”

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“I purpose to take occasion of praying upon the sight of any church which I may pass, that God may be worshipped there in spirit, and that souls may be saved there.”

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“Prayer with so many of us is simply a form of selfishness; it means asking for something for ourselves—that and nothing more.”

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“This is not a praying age; it is an age of great activity, of great movements, but one in which the tendency is very strong to stress the seen and the material and to neglect and discount the unseen and the spiritual.”

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“Prayer is the greatest of all forces, because it honours God and brings Him into active aid.”

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“Prayer is our most formidable weapon, but the one in which we are the least skilled, the most averse to its use.”

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“The first and last stages of holy living are crowned with praying. It is a life trade.”

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“We are in danger of substituting churchly work and a ceaseless round of showy activities for prayer and holy living. A holy life does not live in the [prayer] closet, but it cannot live without the closet.”

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“None but praying leaders can have praying followers.”

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“Prayer is not the foe to work, it does not paralyze activity.  It works mightily; prayer itself is the greatest work.”

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“The [prayer] closet…is the battlefield of the Church; its citadel; the scene of heroic and unearthly conflicts.”

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“The secret of prayer and its success lie in its urgency. We must press our prayers upon God.”

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“We can do nothing without prayer. All things can be done by importunate prayer.”

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“Prayer in its highest form and grandest success assumes the attitude of a wrestler with God.”

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“Pray and never faint, is the motto Christ gives us for praying.”

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“The Gospel cannot live, fight, conquer without prayer—prayer unceasing, instant and ardent.”

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“Secret praying is the test, the gauge, the conserver of man’s relation to God.”

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“Prayer is the mightiest agent to advance God’s work.”

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“A revival of real praying would produce a spiritual revolution.”

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“The possibilities of prayer run parallel with the promises of God.”

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“We are charged in God’s Word ‘always to pray,’ ‘in everything by prayer,’ ‘continuing instant in prayer,’ to ‘pray everywhere,’ ‘praying always.’”

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“When prayer fails, the world prevails.”

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“A holy life is the only preparation for prayer.”

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“We pray feebly because we live feebly.”

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“The conditions of prayer are well ordered and clear—abiding in Christ; in His name.”

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“Prayer is the helpless and needy child crying to the compassion of the Father’s heart and the bounty and power of a Father’s hand.”

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"If God is not first in our thoughts and efforts in the morning, He will be in the last place the remainder of the day."

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"Heaven is too busy to listen to half-hearted prayers or to respond to pop-calls."

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"Prayer is not learned in a classroom but in the closet."

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"Prayer is the easiest and hardest of all things; the simplest and the sublimest; the weakest and the most powerful; its results lie outside the range of human possibilities-they are limited only by the omnipotence of God."

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"Public prayers are of little worth unless they are founded on or followed up by private praying."

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"The little estimate we put on prayer is evidence from the little time we give to it."

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Importunity 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. We press our pleas because we must have them, or die.

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"We can never expect to grow in the likeness of our Lord unless we follow His example and give more time to communion with the Father. A revival of real praying would produce a spiritual revolution."

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"Men are God’s method. The church is looking for better methods; God is looking for better men. What the church needs today is not more machinery or better, not new organizations or more and novel methods, but men who the Holy Spirit can use – men of prayer, men mighty in prayer. The Holy Spirit does not come on machinery but on men. He does not anoint plans, but men – men of prayer."

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"Every mighty move of the Spirit of God has had its source in the prayer chamber."

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