'Have we the desire which presses us to close communion with God?'

'Do we really feel these inward pantings of desire after heavenly treasures? Do the inbred groanings of desire stir our souls to mighty wrestlings?

Alas for us! The fire burns altogether too low.

The flaming heat of soul has been tempered down to a tepid lukewarmness.

This, it should be remembered, was the central cause of the sad and desperate condition of the Laodicean Christians, of whom the awful condemnation is written that they were "rich, and increased in goods and had need of nothing," and knew not that they "were wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind."

Again: we might well inquire -- have we that desire which presses us to close
communion with God, which is filled with unutterable burnings, and holds us there
through the agony of an intense and soul-stirred supplication?

 Our hearts need much to be worked over, not only to get the evil out of them, but to get the good into them.

And the foundation and inspiration to the incoming good, is strong, propelling desire. This holy and fervid flame in the soul awakens the interest of heaven, attracts the attention of God, and places at the disposal of those who exercise it, the exhaustless riches of Divine grace.'

Quoted from- 'THE NECESSITY OF PRAYER  By E.M. BOUNDS' (Excerpt 16)

*******
It Is true- 'Our hearts need MUCH to be worked over, not ONLY to get the EVIL OUT of them, but to get the GOOD INTO THEM.'  This is truth! And our hearts need to be cleansed by our SAVIOR, a cleansing that removes all that is evil and allows all that is good to take its place. We need this and it can be found through PRAYER, intense prayer, prayer of the type we so seldom experience.

Please, God, may we have this experience in praying to You. May our souls be filled with You, as we are renewed in You through prayer. Our Savior prayed constantly, should we do no less?

Please, Lord, please save us from our own lukewarmness. We are POOR, BLIND, and NAKED- we need You because You are our riches, our sight, our clothing! You are all we need! Please, save us from ourselves!

Is Heaven our Earthly Treasure?

'We fail much more in desire, than in its outward expression. We retain the form, while the inner life fades and almost dies.

One might well ask, whether the feebleness of our desires for God, the Holy Spirit, and for all the fulness of Christ, is not the cause of our so little praying, and of our  languishing in the exercise of prayer?

Do we really feel these inward pantings of desire after heavenly treasures? Do the inbred groanings of desire stir our souls to mighty wrestlings?

Alas for us! The fire burns altogether too low.

The flaming heat of soul has been tempered down to a tepid lukewarmness.'

*******
Mat_6:21  For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

Mat_13:44  Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field.

Is HEAVEN our EARTHLY TREASURE?

How much do we contemplate our treasures?  Do you have an earthly treasure? What DO you spend most of your time thinking about? Before you say, 'nothing', think about it, you must think, right? What things in your life would you be devastated to lose?

I ask again, Is Heaven our Earthly Treasure?

Heaven is the only treasure that we cannot lose. Yet we keep making earthly things our treasures.

Do we live with the DESIRE for heaven in us? Is this desire a part of our real, every day lives? Do we LONG for heaven?  Honestly, we must have this desire real inside of us. A desire for the heavenly, not the earthly. A desire for Heaven's will to be done on earth, not our earthly will to be done in heaven.  All too often we are putting our earthly desires far in front of our heavenly, this has got to change! By the grace of God this has to change now! Heavenly desires begin here and now. Our Savior came to bring us the good news of our salvation, of His preparing a place for us IN HEAVEN.

Please, LORD, please create a desire for the heavenly in us! Please, LORD, make this desire something REAL, something that consumes us beyond any earthly treasure.

All BY YOUR GRACE let our prayers be filled with the desire for the heavenly, by faith believing in YOU for ALL things we need. Guide our prayers, fill our prayers with YOU, YOUR LOVE!

We need our earthly treasure here and now to be heaven!

Quoted from- 'THE NECESSITY OF PRAYER  By E.M. BOUNDS' (Excerpt 15 from 2 days before)

Thoughts wandering during prayer?

Yesterday I didn't expound on what I'd read at all so we're doing that today, by the grace of God. So let's read this again pausing here and there to contemplate what is being said…

*******
'Holy desire is much helped by devout contemplation. Meditation on our spiritual need,  and on God's readiness and ability to correct it, aids desire to grow. Serious thought  engaged in before praying, increases desire, makes it more insistent, and tends to save us from the menace of private prayer -- wandering thought.'

Quoted from- 'THE NECESSITY OF PRAYER  By E.M. BOUNDS' (Excerpt 14 from yesterday

******* Who among us hasn't had our minds wander during prayer? Seriously. I'd love to be able to say my mind has never wandered, my thoughts have never taken any wrong turns while I was praying, while I was speaking to my God, but I wouldn't be telling the truth.

If we were talking with someone and suddenly we started doing something else, that person we were talking to would be a little confused, wouldn't they? They'd wondered why we stopped talking to them. They'd wonder why we were suddenly ignoring them in favor of doing something else. They might even ask us what we are doing, why we are doing it. Then again they might get angry and not say a word. If we were in the habit of behaving that way, they'd most likely accept that we are in the habit and shrug it off if our friendship meant something to them. However, if we simply let our minds wander away to something else during prayer we are stunting the communication we are having with our Father God, GOD, Our HEAVENLY FATHER! We are present before our Creator, our Savior, our King, our Everything, the most important Being we could ever be in audience with and we let our minds wander?!

Satan will do everything he can to get us to let our minds wander, to lose focus on God.

Here, E.M. Bounds is saying that we need to spend time in 'devout contemplation'. We need to meditate on our 'spiritual need'. We need to meditate on God's willingness, His readiness, His ability to fix our 'Holy Desire' to heal us, to help us desire HIM.  If we THINK about praying, about our prayers before we actually pray perhaps it will be true that our thoughts won't tend to wander. This is something very worth trying, isn't it?

To think, truly think about praying is this something we need more of?  I know forms of prayer that aren't said with true heart feeling are wrong, and I know we shouldn't always think about what we are going to say, we must leave room to let the Spirit guide us, but perhaps we need to think more. We are seeking an audience with God. We are believing He hears our prayers.  We honestly need to think on this MORE.

Php_4:8  Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

Thinking on our GOD and our communication with our GOD cannot be a bad thing, all by HIS GRACE, by HIS LOVE!

'Alas for us! The fire burns altogether too low'

'Holy desire is much helped by devout contemplation. Meditation on our spiritual need,  and on God's readiness and ability to correct it, aids desire to grow. Serious thought  engaged in before praying, increases desire, makes it more insistent, and tends to save us from the menace of private prayer -- wandering thought.

We fail much more in desire, than in its outward expression. We retain the form, while the inner life fades and almost dies.

One might well ask, whether the feebleness of our desires for God, the Holy Spirit, and for all the fulness of Christ, is not the cause of our so little praying, and of our  languishing in the exercise of prayer?

Do we really feel these inward pantings of desire after heavenly treasures? Do the inbred groanings of desire stir our souls to mighty wrestlings?

Alas for us! The fire burns altogether too low.

The flaming heat of soul has been tempered down to a tepid lukewarmness.

This, it should be remembered, was the central cause of the sad and desperate condition of the Laodicean Christians, of whom the awful condemnation is written that they were "rich, and increased in goods and had need of nothing," and knew not that they "were wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind."

Again: we might well inquire -- have we that desire which presses us to close
communion with God, which is filled with unutterable burnings, and holds us there
through the agony of an intense and soul-stirred supplication?

 Our hearts need much to be worked over, not only to get the evil out of them, but to get the good into them.

And the foundation and inspiration to the incoming good, is strong, propelling desire. This holy and fervid flame in the soul awakens the interest of heaven, attracts the attention of God, and places at the disposal of those who exercise it, the exhaustless riches of Divine grace.'

Quoted from- 'THE NECESSITY OF PRAYER  By E.M. BOUNDS' (Excerpt 14)

'We Ought to Pray' Even when we have no desire to pray

'The deeper the desire, the stronger the prayer. Without desire, prayer is a meaningless mumble of words. Such perfunctory, formal praying, with no heart, no feeling, no real desire accompanying it, is to be shunned like a pestilence. Its exercise is a waste of precious time, and from it, no real blessing accrues.

And yet even if it be discovered that desire is honestly absent, we should pray, anyway.

We ought to pray.

The "ought" comes in, in order that both desire and expression be cultivated. God's Word commands it. Our judgment tells us we ought to pray -- to pray whether we feel like it or not -- and not to allow our feelings to determine our habits of prayer. In such circumstance, we ought to pray for the desire to pray; for such a desire is God-given and heaven-born. We should pray for desire; then, when desire has been given, we should pray according to its dictates. Lack of spiritual desire should grieve us, and lead us to lament its absence, to seek earnestly for its bestowal, so that our praying, henceforth, should be an expression of "the soul's sincere desire."

A sense of need creates or should create, earnest desire. The stronger the sense of need,
before God, the greater should be the desire, the more earnest the praying. The "poor in
spirit" are eminently competent to pray.

Hunger is an active sense of physical need. It prompts the request for bread. In like manner, the inward consciousness of spiritual need creates desire, and desire breaks forth in prayer. Desire is an inward longing for something of which we are not possessed, of which we stand in need -- something which God has promised, and which may be secured by an earnest supplication of His throne of grace.'

Quoted from- 'THE NECESSITY OF PRAYER  By E.M. BOUNDS' (Excerpt 13)

*******

Truly our adversary, the devil, will do all he can to keep us from praying! The belief that we must feel like praying to pray is one of those tricks he uses to keep us from communicating with our Father God.  The knowledge that we should pray regardless of our feelings is what we need embedded in us.  We most definitely shouldn't wait till we are trouble to turn to God in prayer, yet that's exactly what a lot of people do. Waiting until they have a need for help, not realizing that we have a desperate need of prayer daily. We need daily spiritual bread as well as daily physical bread.  Only one of those two things are within our power of enacting. We cannot always supply daily physical bread but we can daily supply spiritual bread because that spiritual bread is just a prayer away from us. We can open the lines of communication in our happiest and our most desperate of hours. There is never a time we are forbidden to pray because prayer is so incredibly important and special. We can pray in complete silence without anyone knowing, or we can choose to be outspoken and loud in our prayer.  If we choose to be outspoken and loud we may be asked to stop, but even if we do stop the noise of our prayer, inwardly no one can stop us from praying - not a single person. Spiritual sustenance is extremely necessary. We no more can keep living without physical food than we can keep spiritually alive without prayer.

Here, E.M. Bounds speaks of desire and lack of desire in prayer. When our hearts are sometimes at their lowest point and life has tormented us with it's evils, the slicing arrows of satan cutting us to the quick, the poison tipped barbs infuse us with a desire to turn from God, not towards Him, it is then we need to take that lack of desire to pray and pray even harder!

We will not be left to a life filled with wondrous and constant joy despite life's hardships, not if Satan has anything to say about it, and truly...not if God has anything to do with it as well.  We are being refined! Our patience is being perfected! These awful trials and tribulations are ripping our hearts out and wringing the evil from them by the grace of our GOD.  Satan would turn that grace into disease, wanting us to shun it at all cost, but our God is greater than the evil one!

Please, LORD, please SAVIOR, please HEAVENLY FATHER live in us and us in You!  We need You more than anything else! We need YOU!

Job was tortured physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually tortured as Satan tried his best to rip him from God's love.  All by God's grace that wasn't possible! Please, LORD, keep us in YOU, in YOUR grace no matter what. We don't want pain and heartache, we don't want to be tortured in any way at all, our desire is to be kept in YOU free from all that, but we know that this world is filled with pain and heartache that You cannot keep us from, but You can keep us from EVIL that would destroy us by wresting us permanently from You! Please, we pray the desperate prayer to be kept from EVIL! Deliver us, LORD, deliver us from evil, lead us not into temptation, not into despair!  You have the POWER, You have the GLORY, Yours is the KINGDOM forever and ever.  All in YOU in YOUR grace, YOUR mercy, YOUR love… we PRAY.

Prayer- Hope, Trust

'Do we believe, without a doubt? When we pray, do we believe, not that we shall receive
the things for which we ask on a future day, but that we receive them, then and there?

Such is the teaching of this inspiring Scripture. How we need to pray, "Lord, increase our faith," until doubt be gone, and implicit trust claims the promised blessings, as its very own.

This is no easy condition.

 It is reached only after many a failure, after much praying, after many waitings, after much trial of faith.

May our faith so increase until we realize and receive all the fulness there is in that Name which guarantees to do so much.

Our Lord puts trust as the very foundation of praying.

The background of prayer is trust.

The whole issuance of Christ's ministry and work was dependent on implicit trust
in His Father.

The centre of trust is God.

Mountains of difficulties, and all other hindrances to prayer are moved out of the way by trust and his virile henchman, faith.

When trust is perfect and without doubt, prayer is simply the outstretched hand, ready
to receive. Trust perfected, is prayer perfected. Trust looks to receive the thing asked for
-- and gets it. Trust is not a belief that God can bless, that He will bless, but that He does
bless, here and now.

Trust always operates in the present tense.

Hope looks toward the future. Trust looks to the present.

Hope expects. Trust possesses.

Trust receives what prayer acquires. So that what prayer needs, at all times, is abiding and abundant trust.'

Quoted from- 'THE NECESSITY OF PRAYER  By E.M. BOUNDS' (Excerpt 12)
*******

Is this truth?

Maybe I've spent so much time hoping I've forgotten about trust.  Am I so timid in my faith I just stop at hope?  Do my own doubts rear up their ugly little heads so that I'm not able to trust fully? I don't want to believe that it could be true, I want to trust. I want to ask and trust. But… see, there's one of those doubts already. The 'but' says all too loudly, 'What happens if you trust and it doesn't come to pass? Doesn't hope leave room for a little doubt so that there's wiggle room to pacify self by saying, 'I hoped but I knew it could go either way.'  Trust on the other hand doesn't say at all that it could go either way, I WILL get what I prayed for beyond doubt.  Do we truly believe we get what we pray for WHEN we pray for it, or are our prayers always geared towards a future response?  The … 'I'll pray for you.'  That's a promise for a future prayer for someone that might need prayer right then and there.  We pray for someone and we continue to pray for them asking God over and over to grant their petition- all the while not believing the very first time we asked for that particular petition that it was answered.  We don't believe because results aren't immediate in our understanding. That job we pray for that never seems to come, is it God not hearing so we keep praying?

What about this parable of our Savior's...

Luk 18:1  And he spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint;
Luk 18:2  Saying, There was in a city a judge, which feared not God, neither regarded man:
Luk 18:3  And there was a widow in that city; and she came unto him, saying, Avenge me of mine adversary.
Luk 18:4  And he would not for a while: but afterward he said within himself, Though I fear not God, nor regard man;
Luk 18:5  Yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.
Luk 18:6  And the Lord said, Hear what the unjust judge saith.
Luk 18:7  And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them?
Luk 18:8  I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?

*******
We ought to always pray- NOT FAINT.

God will avenge His own elect… THOSE crying to Him DAY and NIGHT, THOSE He bears long with!

We must keep praying with hope not lamenting our lack of the described trust above because we must cry day and night for our Savior to Save us, even as we know He is willing to save us. We must keep praying for His return, though we KNOW He will return.   We must keep praying because WE BELIEVE, and we need His bearing long with us, helping our unbelief!

That job, that healing, that helping all that left in God's hands to provide as He sees fit IS an ANSWERED prayer if we are praying for HIS WILL BE DONE.  We WANT HIS WILL, and He who sees the end from the beginning knows what is best, this is what we must TRUST, not that we will see the immediate results we DESIRE! This isn't about our desire, or at least it isn't supposed to be about what we want. Our desire must be HIS WILL and this we can trust in! His Will Be Done!

Let us TRUST in HIS WILL, believing when we pray all our prayers are answered according to HIS will, not our fleshy, finite, limited, lowly manner of comprehension of how we think things would be best- how can we ever truly know.  We have our hopes and a lot of them are based in selfishness, not God.  We must HOPE IN GOD, we must TRUST IN GOD!

IN HIS LOVE!

'An earth-bound, earth-satisfied spirit cannot pray'

'Great incentives to pray are furnished in Holy Scriptures, and our Lord closes His teaching about prayer, with the assurance and promise of heaven. The presence of Jesus Christ in heaven, the preparation for His saints which He is making there, and the assurance that He will come again to receive them -- how all this helps the weariness of praying, strengthens its conflicts, sweetens its arduous toil! These things are the star of hope to prayer, the wiping away of its tears, the putting of the odour of heaven into the bitterness of its cry. The spirit of a pilgrim greatly facilitates praying. An earth-bound, earth-satisfied spirit cannot pray. In such a heart, the flame of spiritual desire is either gone out or smouldering in faintest glow. The wings of its faith are clipped, its eyes are filmed, its tongue silenced. But they, who in unswerving faith and unceasing prayer, wait continually upon the Lord, do renew their strength, do mount up with wings as eagles, do run, and are not weary, do walk, and not faint.'

Quoted from- 'THE NECESSITY OF PRAYER  By E.M. BOUNDS' (Excerpt 12)

Mat 6:13  ...For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.

The kingdom.

We live for the same kingdom our Savior lived and died for.  We pray for the same kingdom our Savior prayed for.

'The spirit of a pilgrim  greatly facilitates praying.'   How amazingly true!  If we aren't convinced that we are but pilgrims here, if we don't LIVE as if we are pilgrims here, that this is just a temporary existence as we journey towards the kingdom , then we are not living as our Savior lived. This was not His world-  read the following -

Joh_8:23  And he said unto them, Ye are from beneath; I am from above: ye are of this world; I am not of this world.

Jesus said- 'I AM NOT OF THIS WORLD.'

Joh_12:31  Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out.

The prince of this world is SATAN.

Joh_18:36  Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence.

Jesus said- 'My kingdom is NOT of this world.'

2Co_4:4  In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.

Satan BLINDS the minds of those who refuse to believe in our SAVIOR.

We live in a world whose ruler is trying desperately to blind us to truth! We live in a world that is NOT our final home! We are striving for the KINGDOM to come, not this world! Why do we forget this and get all caught up in the angst and evils of this world? Satan uses everything at his disposal to tempt us to leave our SAVIOR. Satan does NOT want us to be in the kingdom that is to come and he will stop at NOTHING to keep us focused on this world!

Are we focused on this world? If we are caught up in any turmoil of any sort right not there is a good possibility that we are focusing on here and now and NOT on the KINGDOM to COME.

'An earth-bound, earth-satisfied spirit cannot pray. In such a heart, the flame of spiritual desire is either gone out or smouldering in faintest glow. The wings of its faith are clipped, its eyes are filmed, its tongue silenced.'

Truth.  If we want this to be our only home, if we are satisfied with this world being our only home then truly we cannot pray. How can we?  Our hope is in HEAVEN with our SAVIOR and if it's not we are praying AMISS! We don't want our wings of faith clipped, we don't want our eyes covered in film, we do not wish our tongue silent. Please LORD and SAVIOR, please let us live for YOU and YOUR kingdom and EVERY TIME we pray let us comprehend this!

Please LORD, we would be YOURS in all things in all ways! Help us! This world's ruler would lead us into all evil and we pray that YOU keep us from all evil!

In YOUR LOVE, YOUR GRACE!