Shared…
The following article is taken from Herald of His Coming Publications:
God Shapes the World by Prayer
By E. M. Bounds
The Secret of Success
Prayer became a settled and only condition to move His Son’s kingdom. “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you” (Matt. 7:7).
The strongest one in Christ’s kingdom is he who is the best knocker. The secret of success in Christ’s kingdom is the ability to pray. The one who can wield the power of prayer is the strong one, the holy one in Christ’s kingdom. The most important lesson we can learn is how to pray.
Prayer is the keynote of the most sanctified life, of the holiest ministry. He does the most for God who is the highest skilled in prayer. Jesus Christ exercised His ministry after this order.
Robert Hall has said, “The prayer of faith is the only power in the universe to which the Great Jehovah yields. Prayer is the sovereign remedy.”
More time for prayer, more relish and preparation to meet God, to commune with God through Christ – this has in it the whole of the matter. Our manner and matter of praying ill become us. The attitude and relationship of God and the Son are the eternal relationship of Father and Son, of asking and giving – the Son always asking, the Father always giving.
And Jesus is to be always praying through His people. We must prepare ourselves to pray; to be like Christ, to pray like Christ.
Man’s access in prayer to God opens everything, and makes his impoverishment his wealth. All things are his through prayer. The wealth and the glory – all things are Christ’s. As the light grows brighter and prophets take in the nature of the restoration, the divine record seems to be enlarged.
The World Needs More True Praying
We are saying prayers after an orderly way, but we have not the world in the grasp of our faith. We are not praying after the order that moves God and brings all divine influences to help us. The world needs more true praying to save it from the reign and ruin of Satan!
We do not pray as Elijah prayed. John Foster puts the whole matter to a practical point. “When the church of God,” he says, “is aroused to its obligation and duties and right faith to claim what Christ has promised – ‘all things whatsoever’ (Matt. 21:22) – a revolution will take place.”
But not all praying is praying. The driving power, the conquering force in God’s cause is God Himself. “Call unto Me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not” (Jer. 33:3) – is God’s challenge to prayer. Prayer puts God in full force into God’s work.
…Faith is only omnipotent when on its knees, and its outstretched hands take hold of God. Then it draws to the utmost of God’s capacity. Only a praying faith can get God’s “all things whatsoever.”
Wonderful lessons are the importunate widow, the Syrophenician woman, and the friend at midnight, of what dauntless prayer can do in mastering or defying conditions, in changing defeat into victory and triumphing in the regions of despair. Oneness with Christ, the peak of spiritual attainment, is glorious in all things; most glorious in that we can then “Ask what [we] will and it shall be done unto [us]” (John 15:7). Prayer in Jesus’ name puts the crowning crown on God, because it glorifies Him through the Son and pledges the Son to give to men “whatsoever” and “anything” they shall ask.
In the New Testament the marvelous prayer of the Old Testament is put to the front that it may provoke and stimulate our praying, and it is preceded with a declaration, the dynamic energy of which we can scarcely translate. “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. Elijah was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit” (Jas. 5:16–18).
The smallness of our results, the cause of all leanness, is solved by the Apostle James – “Ye have not, because ye ask not. Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts [pleasures]” (Jas. 4:2–3).
This is the whole truth in a nutshell.
From Purpose in Prayer by E. M. Bounds.
For more information about Herald of His Coming Publications, please click here.
Prayed…
We continue to pray out the plans, purposes, and calls that You have put within each one of us
Some things in the Church have been contaminated with world thinking
We bring our attention to what has been going on and we refuse to focus on anything else but You, Lord!
The Church shall not go down the wrong path
We take hold of new territories, regions, and realms
Watching around every side!
Calling things that are not as though they were
It is about the finishing!
Everything is aligned to be done in order!
Pleading the blood of Jesus over the priorities
The emphasis must be to move in the right way!
Lord, we want and must know You
You are showing us signs along the way and giving us understanding of things we have not known before
A word of The Lord came forth…
“Each and every day, it is about abiding and residing in the high place with Me, for its only there that you will see. See and hear My voice, and then it will be no choice, for it will be written on the tables of your heart, you know. This is the way that you must go! Lean not to your understanding, your head knows not the way, but by the Spirit you will see and you will say.”
Continued praying…
Calling things to be normal and right in God’s way!
Pressure, get out of the way for the Church is coming through in a supernatural way!
Running with the call and plan!
No longer sitting in neutral and watching the world go by
The vision being made brighter
It is an hour of power to call things forth
Eternal steps being taken today
A word of the Lord came forth…
“There is an operation of My Spirit in this day, and it’s an operation, oh it may even cut away. Cut away that which does not produce and is sick and nay unto death, but by My Spirit, you will see and you will know. The Spirit, He will go and He will flow.”
Continued Praying…
Lord, we love the newness of Your Word!
In these days the word to the Church shall be “New”!
Those who have been down shall be lifted into the new
Lord, bend the Church to her knees!
Enough is enough, that must be gone!
Turning some things upside down!
By the Spirit, we will know where to go and what to do!
We pray for illumination—a spirit of seeing!
Turning that in the right direction and receiving new orders now
Enter with tenacity—great cooperation in the body of Christ!
We have been sanctified, made whole, and cleansed through the blood
Moving out into uncharted territory by the blood
We apply it over the destiny!
By the Spirit, we pray for awakenings where right decisions would be made
Praying over the ears to hear!
Lord, we long to be with You!
We wait on You watching, observing, and seeing!
