Prayer & Faith - E.M. Bounds

Here are a few excerpts from The Complete Works of E.M. Bounds on Prayer.

. . . prayer is simply faith, claiming its natural yet marvelous prerogatives – faith taking possession of its illimitable inheritance. . . when faith ceases to pray, it ceases to live.
(13)

. . . when faith is broken down, the foundations of spiritual life give way, and the entire structure of religious experience falls.

And besides this, giving diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge;and to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness;and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
2 Peter 1:5-8

Faith was the foundation on which other things were to be built. Peter does not enjoin his readers to add to works or gifts or virtues but to faith.

The faith which creates powerful praying is the faith which centers itself on a powerful person. Faith in Christ’s ability to do and to do greatly, is the faith which prays greatly.
(14)

Faith does not grow disheartened because prayer is not immediately honored; it takes God at his Word, and lets him take what time he chooses in fulfilling his purposes, and in carrying on his work. There is bound to be much delay and long days of waiting for true faith, but faith accepts the conditions – knows there will be delays in answering prayer, and regards such delays as times of testing, in the which, it is privileged to show its mettle, and the stern stuff of which it is made.

Pray on. Wait on. You cannot fail. If Christ delay, wait for him. In his own good time, he will come, and will not tarry.
(15)

Patience has its perfect work in the school of delay. In some instances, delay is of the very essence of prayer. God has to do many things, antecedent to giving the final answer – things which are essential to the lasting good of him who is requesting favor at his hands.
(16)

True prayers are born of present trials and present needs. Bread, for today, is bread enough. Bread given for today is the strongest sort of pledge that there will be bread tomorrow. Victory today, is the assurance of victory tomorrow. Our prayers need to be focused upon the present. We must trust God today, and leave the morrow entirely with him. The present is ours; the future belongs to God. Prayer is the task and duty of each recurring day – daily prayer for daily needs.

As every day demands its bread, so every day demands its prayer. No amount of praying, done today, will suffice for tomorrow’s praying. On the other hand, no praying for tomorrow is of any great value to us today. Today’s manna is what we need; tomorrow God will see that our needs are supplied. This is the faith which God seeks to inspire. So leave tomorrow, with its cares, its needs, its troubles, in God’s hands. There is no storing tomorrow’s grace or tomorrow’s praying; neither is there any laying-up of today’s grace, to meet tomorrow’s necessities. We cannot have tomorrow’s grace, we cannot eat tomorrow’s bread, we cannot do tomorrow’s praying. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof; and, most assuredly, if we possess faith, sufficient also, will be the good.
(17)