searchin Guest
| Subject: Prayer and Trust Sat Feb 23, 2008 6:31 pm | |
| Dear friends,
E.M Bounds shaped my vision and practice of prayer when I was a very young believer. His command of the English language is itself, rare; wedded to a prayer-soaked spirituality, he is, to me, the most inspired and inspiring of all writers on the subject.
Today, (Shabbat), I was surfing for videos on prayer, and happened across You Tube footage that was taken at The Call 07/07/07 in Nashville where Arch and I had attended this past July. I had no idea that Bounds had lived there and that his spiritual influence remained. But someone on that stage was asking for an EM Bounds revival. I was amazed, because his name isn't mentioned too much anymore.
Then, today, in my mailbox, this portion of his classic "The Necessity of Prayer"...a second witness... read it slowly.
This morning, in prayer, I had asked for the Lord's encouragement in my stand; this is what He sent me.
wanted to share the blessing, with His love, Paul
colors and emphases are my own
Prayer does not stand alone. It is not an isolated duty and independent principle. It lives in association with other Christian duties, is wedded to other principles, is a partner with other graces. But to faith, prayer is indissolubly joined. Faith gives it color and tone, shapes its character, and secures its results. Trust is faith become absolute, ratified, consummated. There is, when all is said and done, a sort of venture in faith and its exercise. But trust is firm belief, it is faith in full flower. Trust is a conscious act, a fact of which we are sensible. According to the Scriptural concept it is the eye of the new-born soul, and the ear of the renewed soul. It is the feeling of the soul, the spiritual eye, the ear, the taste, the feeling—these one and all have to do with trust. How luminous, how distinct, how conscious, how powerful, and more than all, how Scriptural is such a trust! How different from many forms of modern belief, so feeble, dry, and cold! These new phases of belief bring no consciousness of their presence, no “Joy unspeakable and full of glory” results from their exercise. They are, for the most part, adventures in the peradventures of the soul. There is no safe, sure trust in anything. The whole transaction takes place in the realm of Maybe and Perhaps. Trust like life, is feeling, though much more than feeling. An unfelt life is a contradiction; an unfelt trust is a misnomer, a delusion, a contradiction. Trust is the most felt of all attributes. It is all feeling, and it works only by love. An unfelt love is as impossible as an unfelt trust. The trust of which we are now speaking is a conviction. An unfelt conviction? How absurd! Trust sees God doing things here and now. Yea, more. It rises to a lofty eminence, and looking into the invisible and the eternal, realizes that God has done things, and regards them as being already done. Trust brings eternity into the annals and happenings of time, transmutes the substance of hope into the reality of fruition, and changes promise into present possession. We know when we trust just as we know when we see, just as we are conscious of our sense of touch. Trust sees, receives, holds. Trust is its own witness. Yet, quite often, faith is too weak to obtain God’s greatest good, immediately; so it has to wait in loving, strong, prayerful, pressing obedience, until it grows in strength, and is able to bring down the eternal, into the realms of experience and time. To this point, trust masses all its forces. Here it holds. And in the struggle, trust’s grasp becomes mightier, and grasps, for itself, all that God has done for it in His eternal wisdom and plenitude of grace. In the matter of waiting in prayer, mightiest prayer, faith rises to its highest plane and becomes indeed the gift of God. It becomes the blessed disposition and expression of the soul which is secured by a constant intercourse with, and unwearied application to God. Jesus Christ clearly taught that faith was the condition on which prayer was answered. When our Lord had cursed the fig-tree, the disciples were much surprised that its withering had actually taken place, and their remarks indicated their in credulity. It was then that Jesus said to them, “Have faith in God.” “For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed and be thou cast into the sea, and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass, he shall have whatsoever he saith. Therefore, I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.” Trust grows nowhere so readily and richly as in the prayer-chamber. Its unfolding and development are rapid and wholesome when they are regularly and well kept. When these engagements are hearty and full and free, trust flourishes exceedingly. The eye and presence of God give vigorous life to trust, just as the eye and the presence of the sun make fruit and flower to grow, and all things glad and bright with fuller life.
|
|
Aurorah_Tapistry Member
Posts : 59 Join date : 2008-02-12 Location : earth
| Subject: Re: Prayer and Trust Wed Feb 27, 2008 8:59 pm | |
| Psalms 119! -- Just wanted to thank you for the great piece from that site for women of faith! Thank you for your prayer YHVH dilivered Olivia from the molester, surely He will finish His work! HalleluYAH | |
|
tturt Member
Posts : 103 Join date : 2007-09-08
| Subject: Re: Prayer and Trust Mon Mar 03, 2008 8:29 am | |
| Thank YOU for taking the time to post. | |
|
Psalms_119:105 Co-Admin
Posts : 460 Join date : 2007-08-23 Age : 68 Location : USA
| Subject: Re: Prayer and Trust Sat Mar 15, 2008 10:42 pm | |
| | |
|
Sponsored content
| Subject: Re: Prayer and Trust | |
| |
|