It’s Friday. My goal for Friday is to give you something that’s either an inspiration to me or a great resource that I’ve found helpful. This week, I’d like to share something that has impacted me pretty heavily.

A few years ago, I read several of E.M. Bounds’ books on prayer. These are powerful books, and I go back to them again and again.

In The Reality Of Prayer, Bounds describes what pray is, and what it isn’t. This is something that I’ve copied and stashed in several places, so that I come across it frequently and remind myself of the reality of prayer. I hope you find it as encouraging as I do.

Here’s one of the quotes I love:

Prayer is a privilege, a sacred, princely privilege. Prayer is a duty, an obligation most binding, and most imperative, which should hold us to it. But prayer is more than a privilege, more than a duty. It is a means, an instrument, a condition. Not to pray is to lose much more than to fail in the exercise and enjoyment of a high, or sweet privilege. Not to pray is to fail along lines far more important than even the violation of an obligation.

Prayer is not a picture to handle, to admire, to look at. It is not beauty, coloring, shape, attitude, imagination, or genius. These things do not pertain to its character or conduct. It is not poetry nor music. Its inspiration and melody come from heaven. Prayer belongs to the spirit, and at times it possesses the spirit and stirs the spirit with high and holy purposes and resolves.

What do you do to remind yourself of the importance and sanctity of prayer?

If you are interested in reading more from E.M. Bounds on prayer, you can you can purchase his collected works at Amazon.com.

Disclosure of Material Connection:
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