E M BOUNDSWhen faith ceases to pray, it ceases to live.

Talking to men for God is a great thing, but talking to God for men is greater still.

The Church is looking for better methods; God is looking for better men.

Men are God’s method. The church is looking for better methods; God is looking for better men.

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

God shapes the world by prayer. Prayers are deathless. They outlive the lives of those who uttered them.

A prepared heart is much better than a prepared sermon. A prepared heart will make a prepared sermon.

Talking to men for God is a great thing, but talking to God for men is greater still. He will never talk well and with real success to men for God who has not learned well how to talk to God for men

Preaching never edifies a prayerless soul.

The preacher must have, “bonds of a servant with the spirit of a king, a king in high, royal, independent bearing, with the simplicity and sweetness of a child.

The prayers of God’s saints strengthen the unborn generation against the desolating waves of sin and evil.

The more praying there is in the world, the better the world will be; the mightier the forces against evil everywhere.

The Word of God is the fulcrum upon which the lever of prayer is placed, and by which things are mightily moved.

Trouble and prayer are closely related. Trouble often drives men to God in prayer, while prayer is but the voice of men in trouble.

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.

The soul which has come into intimate contact with God in the silence of the prayer chamber is never out of conscious touch with the Father; the heart is always going out to Him in loving communion, and the moment the mind is released from the task upon which it is engaged, it returns as naturally to God as the bird does to its nest.

All God’s plans have the mark of the cross on them, and all His plans have death to self in them…. But men’s plans ignore the offence of the cross or despise it. Men’s plans have no profound, stern or self-immolating denial in them. Their gain is of the world.

The church is not a democracy in which we have chosen God, but a theocracy in which He has chosen us. The church is the only society in the world that never loses any of its members, even by death. The church upon its knees would bring heaven upon the earth.

If two angels were to receive at the same moment a commission from God, one to go down and rule earth’s grandest empire, the other to go and sweep the streets of its meanest village, it would be a matter of entire indifference to each which service fell to his lot, the post of ruler or the post of scavenger; for the joy of the angels lies only in obedience to God’s will.

Spiritual work is taxing work, and men are loath to do it. Praying, true praying, costs an outlay of serious attention and of time, which flesh and blood do not relish.

If we would have God in the closet, God must have us out of the closet. There is no way of praying to God, but by living to God.

Prayer, in one phase of its operation, is a disinfectant and a preventive. It purifies the air; it destroys the contagion of evil.

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

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.

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.

Prayer puts God’s work in his hands-and keeps it there.

Prayer, like faith, obtains promises, enlarges their operation, and adds to the measure of their results.

The men who have done the most for God in this world have been early on their knees. He who fritters away the early morning, its opportunity and freshness, in other pursuits than seeking God will make poor headway seeking Him the rest of the day. 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.