I have a confession.
I am a reading addict.
I read all the time. I read all kinds of books I all sorts of different topics.
And the only thing I love reading as much as NEW books on cutting edge topics are OLD books with thoughts people have forgotten, but that still resonate in world today.
A book I am reading currently online (for free) is called, "Weapon Of Prayer" by the well-known E.M. Bounds who wrote a famous 8 book series on prayer back in the 1800's and early 1900's.
This book is last in the series.
I just read something today that totally convicted me more than ever about my need to pray more.
I found it in chapter 4 which is called, "God's Need Of Men Who Pray".
Here are some excerpts...
"The Church is not spiritual simply because it is concerned and deals in spiritual values. It may hold its confirmations by the thousand, it may multiply its baptisms, and administer its sacraments innumerable times, and yet be as far from fulfilling its true mission as human conditions can make it.
"This present world’s general attitude retires prayer to insignificance and obscurity. By it, salvation and eternal life are put in the background. It cannot be too often affirmed, therefore, that the prime need of the Church is not men of money nor men of brains, but men of prayer."
When do you hear the need for prayer stated like that nowadays?
But check this next quote and let his words beat you up a little more like they did me.
"Men who represent God and who stand here in His stead, men who are to build up His kingdom in this world, must be in an eminent sense men of prayer. whatever else they may have, whatever else they may lack, they must be men of prayer. Having everything else and lacking prayer, they must fall. Having prayer and lacking all else, they can succeed."
If we want to succeed at the work God's given us, and not fall, then there is one thing we need more than conferences, books, and blogs (except this one - just kidding!)... we need to pray, intercede, and stand in the gap for those we're ministering to and for our own weak and frail selves!
