E.M. Bounds

E.M. Bounds is one of my favorite writers on the subject of prayer. I have all of his books and especially enjoy the compilation book, E.M. Bounds on Prayer. This book is a compilation of most of Bound’s works.

Today I am thinking particularly of how the modern church has put prayer in the shadows, very close to the same place it has put preaching. E.M. Bounds emphasized the importance of prayer in every area of life, especially in the life of the church.The following comes from, The Divine Channel of Power.
We are continually striving to create new methods, plans and organizations to advance the church.  We are working to provide and stimulate growth and effectiveness for the Gospel.

This trend of the day has a tendency to lose sight of the man. Or else he is lost in the workings of the plan or organization. God’s plan is to make much of the man, far more of him than anything else.  Men are God’s method.

The church is looking for better methods; God is looking for better men.  …When God declares that, “The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward Him” (2 Chronicles 16:9).  He declares the necessity of men.  He acknowledges His dependence on them as a channel through which He can exert His power on the world.

This vital, urgent truth is one that this age of machinery is apt to forget.  The forgetting of it is as detrimental to the Word of God as removing the sun from it sphere would be.  Darkness, confusion, and death would ensue.

What the church needs today is not more or better machinery, not new organizations or more and novel methods.  She needs men whom the Holy Spirit can use–men of prayer, men mighty in prayer.  The Holy Spirit does not flow through methods, but through men.  He does not come on machinery, but men.  He does not anoint plans, but men– men of prayer!

E.M. Bounds