Customer Reviews

Power Through Prayer

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

E.M. Bounds wrote 9 books, 7 of which were on the subject of prayer. My spiritual grandfather, Leonard Ravenhill, said of this book when he got it, "I purposed to go through this book at once. But I didn't do that. This book went through me!" Power Through Prayer is power-packed with sketches of the lives of some great men of prayer throughout the centuries. It is by far my most recommended book on the subject of prayer. Buy extra copies for all your friends, as well as any ministers you know. It'll bless their socks off!

There are many good resources on the subject of prayer; however, once you've understood the basics, I've discovered the greatest way to learn to pray is simply to pray. "Power Through Prayer" is packed with inspiration and motivation to get you started and to keep you praying. Bounds' primary target is the minister of the Gospel. His aim is sure and his words will certainly penetrate any sincere but prayerless preacher's heart. E.M. Bounds was a tireless man of prayer, whose words ring with authenticity, passion, and conviction. I have the entire series of Bounds' eight short books on the subject of prayer. "Power Through Prayer" is by far my favorite and a book I regularly go back to when my own prayer life is losing its fire. For a dose of prayer motivation, inspiration, and passion there is no better book than this classic 128-page work, "Power Through Prayer."

While Bounds has written a classic on how important prayer is for the pastor, the layperson can also learn much about prayer.

Among the important points covered include:

1. God is looking for better men and prayer is the preacher's most powerful weapon.
2. Powerful prayer and powerful preaching are inseparably linked.
3. For great preachers, God is the center of their attention and prayer is the road to God.
4. Keep God first in your morning thoughts.
5. Holy character is formed by real and powerful praying.
6. He who has prayed well also studies well.
7. God can work wonders when He can find suitable people.

Read and enjoy this classic and be encouraged to be a more powerful person of prayer!

E.M. Bounds books are very convicting. In fact, few writers can touch a saints heart like E.M. Bounds. His words (while over 100 years old) are still full of truth. Without a doubt Bounds writes as a man with a passion for Jesus Christ who knows that power truly only comes through prayer.

In our "modern" era it is often the duty of leaders in the church to look more like business CEO's rather than biblical servants of Christ. Churches "hire" men based on their resumes rather than their brokeness and their humility nor are they much concerned with their prayer lives. Bounds attacks this false Christianity head on. He shows that power comes through prayer. Much head knowledge is no substitute, says Bounds, to a dynamic prayer life. If we are to preach Christ, we must pray!

While popular preachers such as Osteen, Warren, Stanley, and others sell books full of milk - Bounds books don't sell because of their truth. The "purpose driven" church knows nothing of what Bounds writes and never will until we learn the lesson of Isaiah 31:1 and then we will pray (Luke 18:1). Read this book and weep.

I wish I could give this book 10 stars. E.M. Bounds wrote a book on prayer, and the result was a little book of timeless dynamite that goes straight for the jugular.

If this book doesn't drop you to your knees, nothing will. I've read a few books on prayer by such titans as Watchman Nee and Andrew Murray, but this book is certainly THE ultimate. Bounds was a Civil War chaplain and a Methodist preacher back in the 1800's -- the "old school days" when holiness was the standard and the Glory of the Lord filled the meetings. This, simply, is a book on prayer by a praying man who spent a lifetime on his knees before the Lord.

Bounds had a great way of laying tremendous spiritual truths into short, third grade level sentences. Quick reading (only 120 pages), but you'll want to read it over and over again to soak up all the glorious treasures. You'll spend a lifetime musing over them, incorporating the truths into your time spent alone with God. Bounds doesn't teach you how to pray, but the book's guaranteed to get you on your knees where Jesus will.

This has got to be the all-time classic on prayer, period. I can't imagine a more powerful, concise, or influential treatise on the subject. It's the best there is. Every line is inspired, not one sentence is wasted or superfluous. The book is worth over ten thousand dollars, but most Christian book stores have it in their bargain bin for under five bucks. God is so awesome!

Take advantage of this blessing and get the book! Your prayer life will be changed forever as you get closer and closer to Jesus.

I have never read a book like this book about prayer with such an overwhelming weight, compelling exposition and reasoning in regard to why not only preachers, but christians should pray. What I mean by pray is one that is "...strongly into the heart and life as Christ's "strong crying and tears" did; must draw out the soul into an agony of desire as Paul's did; must be an inwrought fire and force like the "effectual, fervent prayer" of James; must be of that quality which, when put into the golden censer and incensed before God, works mighty spiritual throes and revolutions."(Ch.4)

I can not say I agree with everything Bounds said, but I can not help but be stricken with so many strong statements he made or quoted from the giants of Christianity in the past, among which are as follows (I have to restrain myself from revealing too much of the book):

- Preaching which kills is prayerless preaching. Without prayer the preacher creates death, and not life. The preacher who is feeble in prayer is feeble in life-giving forces. Professional praying there is and will be, but professional praying helps the preaching to its deadly work. Professional praying chills and kills both preaching and praying. Much of the lax devotion and lazy, irreverent attitudes in congregational praying are attributable to professional praying in the pulpit.(Ch.3)

- Prayer--secret fervent believing prayer--lies at the root of all personal godliness. A competent knowledge of the language where a missionary lives, a mild and winning temper, a heart given up to God in closet religion--these, these are the attainments which, more than all knowledge, or all other gifts, will fit us to become the instruments of God in the great work of human redemption. (Ch.4, quoted from Carey's brotherhood)

- Preachers who are great thinkers, great students must be the greatest of prayers, or else they will be the greatest of backsliders, heartless professionals, rationalistic, less than the least of preachers in God's estimate. (Ch.4)

- The character of our praying will determine the character of our preaching. (Ch.4)

- Prayer is humbling work. [1] It abases intellect and pride, [2]crucifies vainglory, and [3]signs our spiritual bankruptcy, and all these are hard for flesh and blood to bear. It is easier not to pray than to bear them. ...perhaps little praying is worse than no praying. Little praying is a kind of make-believe, a salve for the conscience, a farce and a delusion.(Ch.5)

- No ministry can succeed without much praying, and this praying must be fundamental, ever-abiding, ever-increasing. (Ch.6)

- A desire for God which cannot break the chains of sleep is a weak thing and will do but little good for God after it has indulged itself fully. The desire for God that keeps so far behind the devil and the world at the beginning of the day will never catch up. (Ch.9)

- "The leading defect in Christian ministers is want of a devotional habit." Richard Cecil (Ch.10)

- "I urge upon you communion with Christ a growing communion" -- Sam Rutherford (Ch.11)

- "All the minister's efforts will be vanity or worse than vanity if he have not unction." -- Richard Cecil (Ch.16)

- Apostolic praying was as taxing, toilsome, and imperative as apostolic preaching. They prayed mightily day and night to bring their people to the highest regions of faith and holiness. They prayed mightier still to hold them to this high spiritual altitude. The preacher who has never learned in the school of Christ the high and divine art of intercession for his people will never learn the art of preaching (Ch.17)

- "If I should neglect prayer but a single day, I should lose a great deal of the fire of faith." -- Martin Luther (Ch.20)

This is an unquestionably must read for Christians who long for sweet and growing communion with Christ and need some fuel and fire to do so.

Edward McKendree Bounds (1835-1913), was a mighty man of God, a Methodist minister and devotional writer. Born in Shelby Country, Missouri, he first became a lawyer, but after the American Civil War he became a minister for the Methodist Episcopal Church. Rev. Bounds is most remembered today for his "Spiritual Life Books," all of which were written in the last seventeen years of his life, after a lifetime of serving God and his fellow man.

This wonderful book was written by Rev. Bounds as advice to the preacher, and in it he tells the reader why prayer is important, how to pray, and what it means. But, don't get the idea that this is a philosophical work directed at learned readers. Instead, this book is wonderful advice on prayer that will inform and convict any Christian reader.

Indeed, I must say that Rev. Bounds really knew what he was talking about. The book is very readable, and I found myself convicted by what he had to say. This is a great book on prayer, one that I would recommend for any and every preacher, and also any and every other Christian. This is a Christian classic that I highly recommend to all believers.

By the way, here's a great quote from Power Through Prayer: "What the Church needs to-day is not more machinery or better, not new organizations or more and novel methods, but men whom the Holy Ghost can use-men of prayer, men mighty in prayer." As true today as the day it was written!

Whether you're a pastor or a parishioner I would highly recommend this book to you. Although it's written for pastors, it is tremendously applicable to believers in all walks of life. I have been admonished, exhorted, rebuked, instructed and very humbled by reading this book. I believe it could prove to be one of the most life-transforming books I've ever read.

This book is not written in contemporary English but is more powerful than most new books that are out there on this subject. Don't read this book if you are not ready to devote much time to prayer. It is convicting. It is a classic. And it is good.

E.M. Bounds's brief work, "Power Through Prayer," is well-deserving of its recognition as a classic work on prayer. This ought to be required reading for pastors. My only hesitation, and the reason I rate it with 4 stars, is that it is rather difficult to hand it off to laypeople, so directed as it is to clergy. But if you are a pastor and have not read this work, it must be pushed to the top of your reading list (it can be read in one long evening of study).