"We see, in many a land, the proudest dynasties and tyrannies still crushing, with their mountain weight, every free motion of the Consciences and hearts of men. We see, on the other hand, the truest heroism for the right and the greatest devotion to the Truth in hearts that God has touched. We have a work to do, as great as our forefathers and, perhaps, far greater. The enemies of Truth are more numerous and subtle than ever and the needs of the Church are greater than at any preceding time. If we are not debtors to the present, then men were never debtors to their age and their time. Brethren, we are debtors to the hour in which we live. Oh, that we might stamp it with Truth and that God might help us to impress upon its wings some proof that it has not flown by neglected and unheeded." -- C.H. Spurgeon . . . "If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." John 8:31, 32 . . . . .

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Saturday, October 12, 2024

The HEART Of PRAYER – PRAYER of the HEART

THE COMPLETE WORKS OF E.M. BOUNDS ON PRAYER -568 pgs. Buy it used on THRIFT Books under $10. New on AMAZON for $17.00, or all eight books in one volume which amounts to just over $2 per book!!

The Necessity of Prayer, The Essentials of Prayer, The Possibilities of Prayer, The Reality of Prayer, Purpose in Prayer, The Weapon of Prayer, Power Through Prayer and Prayer and Praying Men

21 DAYS OF TRANSFORMING PRAYER – Daniel Henderson; 102 pgs. For $6.00. Doing FB videos each week for all 21 installments.

Listen to this teaching online from the SHINE BRIGHT Church YouTube Channel here!

Jesus went to the Cross to die – why? For our sins only? Not only for our sins, but upon His giving up of His Spirit, the veil in the temple was torn, top to bottom, signifying that by His resurrection He imparts to us new life and the Spirit dwells no longer in stone buildings, but in hearts of Christ’s disciples!
Thus by faith in Christ and His Gospel we become born again; we receive the new nature – the holiness of Jesus begins to grow in us “Little by Little”.

We cultivate a relationship with our Creator and Redeemer, and that’s what GOD is after: He wants relationship as a Father to His children. Jesus is LORD to us His bond servants, He is the Good Shepherd to us His sheep; He is an example for us as our Elder Brother, and a faithful, dependable Friend to us who He calls His friends.

Prayer is an essential part of this relationship; you really can’t have a relationship with GOD without it.
Imagine living with your parents or your spouse, your children – and you never talk to each other! Or maybe you talk small talk, very polite: “Hi! Good Morning! Have a nice day! See you when you get home! Don’t forget to take out the garbage. Did you remember to pick up the mail?”

What kind of relationship is that? Is that what JESUS hung on the Cross for? NO!

He desires with all of His heart and soul the deepest, most intimate, whole-hearted and devoted kind of relationship and we cannot have this without prayer! Yet, how much time and effort do we give to prayer?

A couple of quotes from E.M. Bounds:
“The little estimate [value] we put on prayer is evidence from the little time we give it.”

And yet, “Four things let us ever keep in mind: GOD hears prayer, GOD heeds prayer, GOD answers prayer and GOD delivers by prayer.” ~ E.M. Bounds.
In the rowboat of fellowship among the saints of GOD, we are all granted two oars to navigate this life by:

The oar of the Holy Scriptures – GOD’s special revelation to man. His heart intimately expressed, His Word gloriously revealed, His passion beautifully displayed, His Plan profoundly pronounced… His love letter written to us, not with ink, but with His blood. This is His means of speaking to us, His beloved!

Then there is the oar of prayer – that which is provided for the repentant sinner, and most especially for the regenerated saint.
This blessing whereby we can in a very real sense enter into the Holy of Holies, and figuratively speaking, step around powerful but prostrate cherubim and seraphim, who for the glory of GOD’s brilliance must shield their eyes with their wings.
And we walk directly up to the Throne of GOD not in our own name, but by the Name of Jesus Christ and address our Abba Father – Who delights at our visitation just as any good father would.

Some engage in “grocery shopping” prayer – they got their list of requests and ask GOD for this and that – and once they read through the entire list, it’s “amen” and off they go, without any heart to heart fellowship with Abba Father. GOD wants communion with His beloved!

Picture this: a father comes through the front door and sees their little child sitting on the living room floor playing with their blocks. And that precious babe sees their Daddy and squeals with delight! And raising themselves up on their tiny legs, they toddle over to him, their face bright with radiant joy and lifting their hands to him, desiring to be close – face to face with their Daddy, because they love him!

How does that good Daddy’s heart respond to that?
Take that heart and multiply it to the Nth degree, and you have some idea how your Abba feels when you approach Him in prayer!

Should we row only with the oar of Scripture, we won’t get very far – we’ll be going in circles. The same for the oar of prayer – if we only use this oar, we’ll go in circles but in the opposite direction. Yet if we use both oars, in the fellowship of the saints, we’ll go in a sure direction; we’ll make progress and advance in the kingdom of GOD.

But know this: If you’re in the boat, and you’re not rowing, you are dead weight, not participating in the velocity of this fellowship we call SHINE BRIGHT Church. Without you, we can’t go as fast or as steady as we could. You are needed here!

Someone once asked Charles Spurgeon:
“Which is more important: the Word of GOD or prayer to GOD?”
He answered with a question of his own: “Which is more important? Breathing in, or breathing out?” This Prince of Preachers also said, “Prayer is not so much about length as it is about weight.”
Some people can prattle on and on and on, and for all their words, not say so much. While others pray a prayer – not as eloquent, not so polished, not as intricate –not skillfully lacing all sorts of doctrinal truth into their prayer, but it’s a prayer from the heart, that is wholly sincere, completely desperate – like the prayer of Peter sinking beneath the waves, and all he had time to say before he went under was “LORD, HELP!” That’s a prayer that GOD hears!

And it’s vitally important that we pray just as much in our prayer closet as we do in our cushioned pews. In fact, without private prayer, public prayer doesn’t avail as much.

“Public prayers are of little worth unless they are [based] on or followed by private praying.” ~ E.M. Bounds

Prayer is a most powerful weapon for the Christian warrior in this spiritual warfare that we are not “born to” but “born again to”.

Satan knows this, in fact perhaps better than most of us! This is why his objective is to draw us away from prayer, to get us to doubt prayer and its power, to distract us from prayer. I recently read that “Satan doesn’t need to destroy the church in order to defeat the church, no! All he needs to do to defeat the church, is to distract the church”.

To keep us so busy, like a bunch of Marthas who can only grumble and complain that there aren’t others helping us do what we are doing, and being so busy, we neglect to be like a bunch of Marys, kneeling before and learning of, and communing with the Savior (LUKE 10:38-42).

Jesus’ own words: “Mary has chosen that better part, and it will not be taken from her”!

We don’t want to merely pray, but we desire to pray effectively. In order to do that, our prayer life must be free of any hindrances that would keep our prayers from reaching the throne of GOD and being effective.

Pastor Sonny did a Seven Part series on HINDERED PRAYERS. We must be aware of these hindrances that could potentially nullify our prayers until those hindrances are removed through obedience to GOD.
“What the church needs today is not more [or better] machinery [read that: technology and techniques], not new organizations or more and [new] methods, but men [and women! And young people!] of prayer. [Christians] that the Holy Spirit can use – [Christians] of prayer, [Christians] mighty in prayer. The Holy Spirit does not flow through methods, but through men [and women of GOD]. He doesn’t come upon machinery but men; He doesn’t anoint plans but men of prayer.” ~ E.M. Bounds
A testament to this truth is the first century church. Without technology, without methods on growing churches, without conferences and seminars, they turned the world RIGHT side UP! How? It’s simple – too simple it seems for our sophisticated, 21st century sensibilities. What the apostles have said, let us as disciples of Christ say amen to:

ACTS 6:4
…but we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word.


They overcame Satan! How? Without petitions, without marching, without writing to their government… The same way that the tribulation saints will overcome the enemy of the church, who during the time of tribulation will rule this fallen world absolutely, with the antichrist in full power over the entire globe:

REVELATION 12:11
And they [the saints] overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death.

Prayer is flesh-denying, because our flesh, that is our sin nature actually hates prayer, as much as it hates holiness, hates to read (and even more so, obey) the Word of GOD, and yes, our sin nature actually hates GOD!

So, we want to declare war on our enemy – our sin nature, and see to it that it stays immobilized by nailing it to the Cross: Apostle Paul said, “I die daily” and that he is crucified with Christ (1 COR 15:31; GAL 2:20) and he also declared:

ROMANS 6:6
…knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin.


And also:

ROMANS 6:11-14
11 Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. 12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. 13 And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. 14 For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.


Prayer is the means by which we acquire the heavenly air by which we breath in the vitality of GOD’s power and acquire His anointing. The LORD Jesus promised:

LUKE 24:49
Behold, I send the Promise of My Father upon you; but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high.


“Tarry” – kathizo in the Greek: “to be seated, to sit, to be settled, dwell, continue to be set, seated, to appoint.”

“power” – dunamis in the Greek: “force, power, miraculous power, ability, abundance”.

In other words, stay in a place of waiting, of expectation, until that which is promised arrives, and He certainly did arrive in ACTS 2 at Pentecost!

ACTS 1:4-5,8
4 And being assembled together with them, He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the Father, "which," He said, "you have heard from Me; 5 "for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now."
8 "But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.


The LORD Jesus prophesied that the message of the Gospel would reach “to the end of the Earth”. It would be unstoppable! And they were effective in the Gospel, in their preaching, in persuading lost sinners by the power of GOD to repent and turn to Christ. They were effective in discipling others! How did this happen?
They tarried in prayer, they persisted in prayer, they practiced prayer perpetually, sometimes prolonging their time in prayer.

The entire book of ACTS has been seen as the testimony of “the praying church”. It’s also been referred to as “the ACTS of the Holy Spirit”. These two go together!

We want to be effective for our LORD Jesus, don’t we? This is why we are dedicating the whole month of OCTOBER to prayer: in the hopes that the saints will catch the hunger, the fire as it were, the zeal, fervency, the passion for prayer and have it established in all of our lives as a permanent fixture of living faith!

Because a PRAYING CHURCH is a PREVAILING CHURCH!

But if the Body of Christ is a prayerless church, then the body will suffer spiritual paralysis!


This is why every Wednesday night we are committing our time to prayer, and we are encouraging you to have a specific time reserved exclusively for Face Time with GOD, rather than Facebook with people! Jeff and I get together every Saturday morning for an hour or two of Bible reading and prayer at our place.
I’ve encouraged you all before: select a day and a time for yourself, along with your spouse for praying together as husband and wife! Select another time to pray together with your children, as a family!

Speaking of tarrying and waiting on GOD, the last Wednesday of this month, OCT 30th (incidentally, the day before what has become a day of darkness, Halloween) I will tarry here in this place for an all-night vigil or for as long as there are saints here who desire to tarry and seek GOD and see what the LORD will do!

I have known such times of sweet fellowship with the LORD, with a wonderful, restful, yet intense experience of His love and peace – it could only be described in the words of A.W. Tozer as “a piercing sweetness”. Once one has a taste of this, its nearly impossible to not want more!

So, may we devote ourselves to prayer saints. As we pour out our prayer petitions, as well as our personal fellowship with our Abba and our LORD Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, may we also pour out our lives to our GOD in sweet surrender to His Holy will.

PSALM 96:8
Give to the LORD the glory due to his name: bring an offering and come into his courts. 9 Oh worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness: fear [tremble] before him, all the earth.


I was told of an African Christian who walked miles and miles to get to church and once there, the offering plate was passed around. He had no money to give, he had nothing, so when the offering plate came around, he laid it on the floor and stepped into it. People were offended and asked him, Why are you stepping on the offering plate? He said, “I’m not stepping on it, I’m stepping into it. I have nothing I can give to GOD except myself.” And GOD I know, was well pleased with that offering!

PSALM 5:1-3
1 Give ear to my words, O LORD, consider my meditation. 2 Hearken unto the voice of my cry, my King, and my God: for unto thee will I pray. 3 My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O LORD; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee and will look up.


For examples of recorded prayers in the Scripture, check out this link! A powerful method of prayer is praying the Scriptures!

Quotes on Prayer by EM BOUNDS. And more quotes. And more quotes still!

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