The Purpose of Prayer

“JESUS said, ‘If ye shall ask anything in my name, that will I do.’ . . . That,is the Divine declaration, and it opens a vista of infinite resources and possibility.” Throughout his ministry, Bounds rose to pray at 4 a.m. and prayed until 7 a.m. Out of this deep prayer experience, he could say, “Without prayer the Christian life, robbed of its sweetness and beauty, becomes cold and formal, and dead; but in the secret place where God talks with His own, the Christian life grows into such a testimony of Divine power that all men will feel its influence and be touched by the warmth of its love . . . That, surely is the purpose of all real prayer and the end of all true service.”—E. M. Bounds