E.M. Bounds On Prayer

"Prayer affects places, times, occasions, and circumstances. It has to do with God and with everything that is related to God. It has an intimate and special relationship to His house. A church should be a sacred place, set apart from all unhallowed and secular uses, for the worship of God. As worship is prayer, the house of God is a place set apart for worship. It is no common place. It is where God dwells, where He meets with His people, and where He delights in the worship of His saints."..............E.M. Bounds

I think that there is an attempt to mix the things of the world with the things of God.

Prayer has become, to some, a means to feed their soulish desires rather than follow the dictates of Christ, the very one we claim to have surrendered our lives to.

We want the blessing of the eternal God to give us the temporary things that the world loves and finds value in.

Our prayers have become a kind of spiritual shopping list that we feel entitled to. That somehow we have been given the right to wander up down the isles of blessings picking and choosing without thought to the cost.

We assume it is part of the "package" deal we received when we were saved.

we need be mindful that each blessing we receive is blood soaked.

That each wonderful gift God pours out to us came with the price of pain and suffering that we cannot relate to.

Pain and suffering for sin that rightfully we should have to pay for.

Yet we flippantly go about our daily lives as though there is no expectation from God as to our purpose and being here on planet earth.

We focus on our own (I confess this) petty needs while hundreds, even millions die daily and have never heard the Gospel of Christ.

We soothe our conviction because of lack of praying and then acting on what God tells us, by putting an extra $5.00 in the plate at church.

We mumble prayers about "Bless those on the mission field."

Maybe it's time for me to take prayer more serious than I do.

Part of what I write is a kind of self inflicted guilt about not praying as much as I think I should.
Part of it is the reality that it's not the quantity of prayer that is needed but the quality.

Oh God! Teach me to pray.

We somehow have the notion that God desires us to be busy in Jesus name. These programs that we institute may be good and fine but if God has not directed them, then we are operating from that selfish place.

Do you see that we think we are very spiritual because we have taken a few moments to talk with God. We are measuring our own spirituality as if to pat ourselves on the back and say, "Jesus will really appreciate the time I spend with Him.

How wrong could we be. Yes! God desires to answer your prayers and to communicate with you, but not when we are still being driven by hearts that are selfish.

This relationship with Christ is where I turn the attention from myself and focus on Him.

Faith tells me that Jesus will never desert me nor forsake me.

That being so, then why do I shun the companionship and company of Jesus to run after the things of the world?
Is it that we simply use Jesus as the great talisman or genie lamp to rub and because our grimy,

little hands moved over the lamp, Jesus is at our every call and must grant us our wishes.
God forgive me! If that is my focus and my heart I truly am in need of taking a look at what

I think salvation to be.

Being saved is about falling in love.

In love with Jesus.

Not the syrupy, Hallmark Card, kind of love.

But a love that goes so deep, burns with such heat, consumes with such passion, that I

would die for this Jesus rather than renounce my allegiance to Him.

It is from this place that prayer becomes more than simply speaking to the air, hoping that there is someone there that hears.

I want to learn to pray.
I want to be lost in prayer.

Let 2018 be the year of prayer.

God on you.......

mb