A Treasury Of Prayer: The Best Of E.M. BoundsShembull

Power through Prayer

We are constantly on a stretch, if not on a strain, to devise new methods, plans, and organizations to advance the church and secure enlargement and efficiency for the gospel. This trend of the day has a tendency to lose sight of the man or sink the man in 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.

What the church needs today 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 men who have most fully illustrated Christ in their character, and have most powerfully affected the world for Him, have been men who have spent so much time with God as to make it a notable feature in their lives.

Charles Simeon—devoted the hours from four to eight in the morning to God.

John Wesley—spent two hours daily in prayer. He began at four in the morning. Of him, one who knew him well wrote: “He thought prayer to be his business more than anything else, and I have seen him come out of his closet with a serenity of face next to shining.”

John Fletcher—stained the walls of his room by the breath of his prayers. Sometimes he would pray all night; always, frequently, and with great earnestness. His whole life was a life of prayer. “I would not rise from my seat,” he said, “without lifting my heart to God.” His greeting to a friend was always; “Do I meet you praying?”

Like these men, be resolute in His cause. Make all practicable sacrifices to maintain it. Consider that thy time is short, and that business and company must not be allowed to rob thee of thy God.