Purpose in Prayer Quotes: The Best Lines from E. M. Bounds
E. M. Bounds wrote in short, hard-hitting sentences, and Purpose in Prayer is full of them. Many of his lines have been shared so often that the wording has drifted. Every quotation below is copied word for word from the text in TheWay Library, with the chapter it comes from, so you can check it and read it in context.
One note before you start. Bounds often quotes other writers, and several chapters end with short sayings from people like Fénelon, Henry Martyn and Spurgeon. The lines here are Bounds' own words unless we say otherwise.
You can read Purpose in Prayer free, or see the chapter-by-chapter summary first.
On what prayer does
God shapes the world by prayer. Prayers are deathless.
Purpose in Prayer, Chapter I
The prayers of God's saints are the capital stock in heaven by which Christ carries on His great work upon earth.
Purpose in Prayer, Chapter I
The possibilities of prayer run parallel with the promises of God.
Purpose in Prayer, Chapter IX
Prayer can do anything that God can do.
Purpose in Prayer, Chapter I0
When prayer fails, the world prevails.
Purpose in Prayer, Chapter IX
The first two lines set the tone for the whole book. Bounds believed prayer is not a private comfort only. It is the means God has chosen to carry out His work in the world.
On asking
The most important lesson we can learn is how to pray.
Purpose in Prayer, Chapter I
More praying and better is the secret of the whole matter.
Purpose in Prayer, Chapter III
God is willing to give, but we are slow to ask.
Purpose in Prayer, Chapter III
As poor as our giving is, our contributions of money exceed our offerings of prayer.
Purpose in Prayer, Chapter III
The aim of all real praying is to get the thing prayed for, as the child's cry for bread has for its end the getting of bread.
Purpose in Prayer, Chapter I1
That last line from chapter 11 is a good key to the book's title. Bounds had no patience for vague praying. A child who asks for bread wants bread, and God invites His children to ask that plainly.
On praying with a purpose
That was prayer with a purpose — the definite and direct utterance of one who knew that he had the ear of God, and that God had the willingness as well as the power to grant the petition which he asked of Him.
Purpose in Prayer, Chapter IV
Bounds wrote this after telling how John Wesley, held back at sea by contrary winds, prayed for a fair wind and then went back to his book, fully expecting the answer. A few lines later he names what keeps most of us from praying like that:
Prayer with so many of us is simply a form of selfishness; it means asking for something for ourselves — that and nothing more.
Purpose in Prayer, Chapter IV
On persistence
Importunate prayer is not an incident, but the main thing, not a performance but a passion, not a need but a necessity.
Purpose in Prayer, Chapter VI
We repeat, not to count the times, but to gain the prayer.
Purpose in Prayer, Chapter VI
Heaven is too busy to listen to half-hearted prayers or to respond to pop-calls.
Purpose in Prayer, Chapter VI
Too often we get faint-hearted and quit praying at the point where we ought to begin.
Purpose in Prayer, Chapter VI
The pleading soul must be aroused to effort by God's silence.
Purpose in Prayer, Chapter I3
Chapter 6 is where Bounds teaches most fully on importunity, using the widow and the unjust judge. We look at it closely in what is importunate prayer.
On the work of prayer
It may be said with emphasis that no lazy saint prays.
Purpose in Prayer, Chapter IX
Prayer is a trade to be learned.
Purpose in Prayer, Chapter V
Prayer is not an opiate but a tonic, it does not lull to sleep but arouses anew for action.
Purpose in Prayer, Chapter V
The closet is not an asylum for the indolent and worthless Christian. It is not a nursery where none but babes belong. It is the battlefield of the Church; its citadel; the scene of heroic and unearthly conflicts.
Purpose in Prayer, Chapter V
Prayer may be low-tongued, but it cannot be cold-tongued. Its words may be few, but they must be on fire.
Purpose in Prayer, Chapter IX
On prayer and holy living
A holy life does not live in the closet, but it cannot live without the closet.
Purpose in Prayer, Chapter V
He who is too busy to pray will be too busy to live a holy life.
Purpose in Prayer, Chapter I0
The stream of praying cannot rise higher than the fountain of living.
Purpose in Prayer, Chapter I0
Desire burdens the chariot of prayer, and faith drives its wheels.
Purpose in Prayer, Chapter I0
Chapter 10 also gives the book's sharpest warning about "prayerless praying," the habit of saying words to God without desire or faith behind them. Bounds goes as far as this:
Better not to pray at all than to pray prayerless prayers, for they are but sinning, and the worst of sinning is to sin on our knees.
Purpose in Prayer, Chapter I0
On what crowds prayer out
Satan had rather we let the grass grow on the path to our prayer-chamber than anything else.
Purpose in Prayer, Chapter I0
One of Satan's wiliest tricks is to destroy the best by the good.
Purpose in Prayer, Chapter I0
We can never get to know Him if we use the vehicle of prayer as we use the telephone — for a few words of hurried conversation.
Purpose in Prayer, Chapter VII
On the church and its leaders
A praying pulpit will beget praying pews.
Purpose in Prayer, Chapter V
The cause of God has no commercial age, no cultured age, no age of education, no age of money. But it has one golden age, and that is the age of prayer.
Purpose in Prayer, Chapter VII
With God the man counts for everything.
Purpose in Prayer, Chapter VIII
All the true revivals have been born in prayer.
Purpose in Prayer, Chapter I2
A line Bounds quotes from Spurgeon
One of the best-known passages in the book isn't Bounds' own. In chapter 6 he quotes Charles Spurgeon at length, and this sentence sums up the book's whole argument:
Whether we like it or not … asking is the rule of the kingdom.
C. H. Spurgeon, quoted in Purpose in Prayer, Chapter VI
The book's last word
Bounds ends with what all this praying is for. Prayer makes us like Christ and puts us to use for God's glory and for other people's salvation. Then he closes the book with one sentence:
And that, surely, is the purpose of all real prayer and the end of all true service.
Purpose in Prayer, Chapter I3
Read the quotes in context
A good quotation sends you back to the book. These lines read even better with the stories and Scriptures around them. Open Purpose in Prayer and read a chapter a day. If you want more Bounds after that, start with Power Through Prayer or see our guide to all of E. M. Bounds' books.