Bounds: Prayer is a necessity...

[adminpc]

Prayer is an absolute necessity to the proper carrying on of God's work. God has made it so. This must have been the principal reason why in the early Church, when the complaint that the widows of certain believers had been neglected in the daily administration of the Church's benefactions, that the twelve called the disciples together, and told them to look out for seven men, full of the Holy Ghost, and wisdom, who they would appoint over that benevolent work, adding this important statement, "But we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the Word." They surely realized that the success of the Word and the progress of the Church were dependent in a preeminent sense upon their " giving themselves to prayer." God could effectively work through them in proportion as they gave themselves fully to prayer. The Apostles were as dependent upon prayer as other folks. Sacred work, - Church activities - may so engage and absorb us as to hinder praying,
and when this is the case, evil results always follow. It is better to let the work go by default than to let the praying go by neglect. Whatever affects the intensity of our praying affects the value of our work. " Too busy to pray " is not only the keynote to backsliding, but it mars even the work done. Nothing is well done without prayer for the simple reason that it leaves God out of the account. It is so easy to be seduced by the good to the neglect of the best, until both the good and the best perish.

EM Bounds