37 Life-Changing E.M Bounds Quotes on Prayer

In this article we will look at a powerful collection of E.M Bounds Quotes on Prayer. These quotes will encourage your prayer walk with the Lord. So, let’s begin…

When it comes to prayer E.M Bounds was a wellspring of knoweldge and revelation. In my post on powerful prayer quotes, I share a handful of E.M Bounds quotes.

But I didn’t feel like it did it justice. There were so many other quotes that could be added. That’s why I thought I would dedicate a whole post to them. I hope you enjoy them.

A Short E.M Bounds Biography

I want to keep this little bio on E.M Bounds short. My heart is that it would give you a little information into his life and who he was.

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Edward McKendree Bounds was born on August 15, 1835 (he passed on August 24, 1913), in Shelbyville, Missouri. In his teenage years, he attended law school and started practicing law at the age of 19.

But Bounds passions were for God. So, he closed up his law firm and went to Centenary Seminary in Palmyra, Missouri. From there Bounds became a chaplain in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War.

Some key notes about his life:

• He was arrested in 1861 for being against slavery
• He pastored a Methodist Episcopal Church South
• He wrote 12 books and 9 of them were on prayer. (Check them out here)
• He was an editor of Louis Christian Advocate, Associate Editor to both The Nashville Christian Advocate and official Methodist newspaper.

I love what Claud Chilton wrote about Bounds in his forward to Necessity of Prayer.

“Edward McKendree Bounds did not merely pray well that he might write well about prayer. He prayed because the needs of the world were upon him. He prayed, for long years, upon subjects which the easy-going Christian rarely gives a thought, and for objects which men of less thought and faith are always ready to call impossible. From his solitary prayer-vigils, year by year, there arose teaching equaled by few men in modern Christian history. He wrote transcendently about prayer, because he was himself, transcendent in its practice.

As breathing is a physical reality to us so prayer was a reality for Bounds. He took the command, ‘Pray without ceasing’ almost as literally as animate nature takes the law of the reflex nervous system, which controls our breathing

-Claude Chilton

E.M Bounds Quotes on Prayer

“Every mighty move of the Spirit of God has had its source in the prayer chamber.” – E. M. Bounds

“I feel it is far better to begin with God, to see His face first, to get my soul near Him before it is near another. In general it is best to have at least one hour alone with God before engaging in anything else.” –  E. M. Bounds

“Prayer is the one prime, eternal condition by which the Father is pledged to put the Son in possession of the world. Christ prays through His people.”  – E. M. Bounds

“I think Christians fail so often to get answers to their prayers because they do not wait long enough on God.” – E. M. Bounds

“It is only when the whole heart is gripped with the passion of prayer that the life-giving fire descends, for none but the earnest man gets access to the ear of God.”– E. M. Bounds

“The goal of prayer is the ear of God, a goal that can only be reached by patient and continued and continuous waiting upon Him, pouring out our heart to Him and permitting Him to speak to us. Only by so doing can we expect to know Him, and as we come to know Him better we shall spend more time in His presence and find that presence a constant and ever-increasing delight.” – E. M. Bounds

“Prayer breaks all bars, dissolves all chains, opens all prisons, and widens all straits by which God’s saints have been held.” – E. M. Bounds

“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” – E. M. Bounds

“Our praying needs to be pressed and pursued with an energy that never tires, a persistency which will not be denied, and a courage that never fails.” – E. M. Bounds

“Our devotions are not measured by the clock, but time is of the essence. The ability to wait, and stay, and press belongs essentially to our intercourse with God.” – E. M. Bounds

 “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.” – E. M. Bounds

“The first and last stages of holy living are crowned with praying. It is a life trade.” – E. M. Bounds

“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” – E. M. Bounds

“The Word of God is the fulcrum upon which the lever of prayer is placed, and by which things are mightily moved.” – E. M. Bounds

“The story of every great Christian achievement is the history of answered prayer.” – E. M. Bounds

“There is neither encouragement nor room in Bible religion for feeble desires, listless efforts, lazy attitudes; all must be strenuous, urgent, ardent. Inflamed desires, impassioned, unwearied insistence delight heaven. God would have His children incorrigibly in earnest and persistently bold in their efforts. Heaven is too busy to listen to half-hearted prayers or to respond to pop-calls. Our whole being must be in our praying.” – E. M. Bounds

“Prayer is not learned in a classroom but in the closet.” – E. M. Bounds

“Walking with God down the avenues of prayer we acquire something of His likeness, and unconsciously we become witnesses to others of His beauty and His grace.” – E. M. Bounds

The central significance of prayer is not in the things that happen as results, but in the deepening intimacy and unhurried communion with God at His central throne of control in order to discover a sense of God’s need in order to call on God’s help to meet that need.” – E. M. Bounds

“Prayer should not be regarded as a duty which must be performed, but rather as a privilege to be enjoyed, a rare delight that is always revealing some new beauty.” – E. M. Bounds

“Prayer makes a godly man, and puts within him the mind of Christ, the mind of humility, of self-surrender, of service, of pity, and of prayer. If we really pray, we will become more like God, or else we will quit praying.” – E. M. Bounds

This is not a praying age; it is an age of great activity, of great movements, but one in which the tendency is very strong to stress the seen and the material and to neglect and discount the unseen and the spiritual.” – E. M. Bounds

“Prayer is our most formidable weapon, but the one in which we are the least skilled, the most averse to its use.” – E. M. Bounds

“Those who know God the best are the richest and most powerful in prayer. Little acquaintance with God, and strangeness and coldness to Him, make prayer a rare and feeble thing.” – E. M. Bounds

“Prayer is God’s plan to supply man’s great and continuous need with God’s great and continuous abundance.” – E. M. Bounds

“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 who the Holy Spirit can use – men of prayer, men mighty in prayer. The Holy Spirit does not come on machinery but on men. He does not anoint plans, but men – men of prayer.” – E. M. Bounds

“Prayer thrives in the atmosphere of true devotion” – E. M. Bounds

“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. How much of these destructive elements, esteemed by men, does the devil bring into the church, until all the high, unworldly and holy aims, and heavenly objects of the church are retired and forgotten?” – E. M. Bounds

“Prayer is the greatest of all forces, because it honours God and brings Him into active aid” – E. M. Bounds

“The praying which makes a prayerful ministry is not a little praying put in as we put flavor to give it a pleasant smack, but the praying must be in the body, and form the blood and bones. Prayer is no petty duty, put into a corner; no piecemeal performance made out of the fragments of time which have been snatched from business and other engagements of life; but it means that the best of our time, the heart of our time and strength must be given.” – E. M. Bounds

“None but praying leaders can have praying followers.”– E. M. Bounds

“Nothing is well done without prayer for the simple reason that it leaves God out of the account” – E. M. Bounds

“Be careful for nothing, but in everything, by supplication and prayer, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God.” That is the Divine cure for all fear, anxiety, and undue concern of soul, all of which are closely akin to doubt and unbelief”– E. M. Bounds

“Prayer is the keynote of the most sanctified life, of the holiest ministry. He does the most for God who is the highest skilled in prayer.” – E. M. Bounds

Few Christians have anything but a vague idea of the power of prayer; fewer still have any experience of that power. The Church seems almost wholly unaware of the power God puts into her hand; this spiritual carte blanche on the infinite resources of God’s wisdom and power is rarely, if ever, used—never used to the full measure of honouring God.” – E. M. Bounds

“Prayer is not the foe to work, it does not paralyze activity.  It works mightily; prayer itself is the greatest work.”– E. M. Bounds

“The lazy man does not, will not, cannot pray, for prayer demands energy. Paul calls it a striving, an agony.” – E. M. Bounds

“The Gospel, in its success and power, depends on our ability to pray.”– E. M. Bounds

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Well, there you have it… 37 E.M Bounds quotes on prayer. I know for me a lot of these quotes hurt because they make me think twice about my struggles with prayer.

But that’s what I want. I want to be challenged in my prayer and devotional life. And I hope you were challenged and stirred up as well. May it bring you to a greater level of hunger and devotion to the Lord!

Feel free to drop me a comment below! I would love to hear from you and what God is doing in your life.

And for more awesome Christian quotes…check out the posts below: