"Victory . . . in the pulpit . . . is won or lost before the preacher's foot enters the pulpit."

“Unction cannot be learned, only earned—by prayer. Unction is God’s knighthood for the soldier-preacher who has wrestled in prayer and gained victory. Victory is not won in the pulpit by firing intellectual bullets or wisecracks, but in the prayer closet; it is won or lost before the preacher’s foot enters the pulpit.” [Leonard Ravenhill, Why Revival Tarries (Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1959; 1987), 20.]

Praying for Richard Dawkins

Alister McGrath concludes his devastating critique of "New Atheism" with the following:

"I’d just finished giving a lecture in London early in 2010. A young man came up afterward and asked me to sign a copy of my textbook Christian Theology: An Introduction. I asked him what had led him to study theology. He told me that he’d read Richard Dawkin’s The God Delusion a year or so earlier and in seemed so unfair and one-sided that he felt he needed to hear the other side. So he started going to church. After a while he found he could not sustain his faith in the parody of when confronted with the real thing. He converted to Christianity—joyful and decisively. “Without Dawkins,” he told me, “I would never have given God a second thought.”

As I signed the book, the young man told me he had a theological question for me. Since The God Delusion had been instrumental in his conversion, should he thank God for Richard Dawkins in his prayers?

I’m still thinking about that one.”

[Alister McGrath, Why God Won’t Go Away: Is the New Atheism Running on Empty? (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2010), 147.]

Prayer and Faith

“It is not the intellectually great that the church needs; nor is it men of wealth that the times demand. It is not people of great social influence that this day requires. Above everybody and everything else it is men of faith, men of mighty prayer, men and women after the fashion of the saints and heroes enumerated in Hebrews, who “obtained a good report through faith,” that the church and the whole wide world of humanity needs.
Many men, of this day, obtain a good report because of their money-giving, their great mental gifts and talents, but few there be who obtain a “good report” because of their great faith in God, or because of the wonderful things which are being wrought through their great praying. Today, as much as at any time, we need men of great faith and men who are great in prayer. These are the two cardinal virtues which make men great in the eyes of God, the two things which create conditions of real spiritual success in the life and work of the church.”

Source: E. M. Bounds. The Complete Works of E. M. Bounds (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1990), 20. [Chapter 2, “Prayer and Faith (Continued)” of “The Necessity of Prayer.”]

Defeat Awaits a Non-Praying Church

“The church more than ever needs profound convictions of the vast importance of prayer in prosecuting the work committed to it. More praying must be done and better praying if the church shall be able to perform the difficult, delicate, and responsible task given to it by her Lord and master. Defeat awaits a nonpraying church. Success is sure to follow a church given to much prayer. The supernatural element in the church, without which it must fail, comes only through praying. More time, in this busy bustling age, must be given to prayer by a God-called church. More thought must be given to prayer in this thoughtless, silly age of superficial religion. More heart and soul must be in the praying that is done if the church would go forth in the strength of her Lord and perform the wonders which is her heritage by divine promise.”

Source: E. M. Bounds. The Complete Works of E. M. Bounds (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1990), 211. [Chapter 14, “Wonders of God through Prayer” of "The Possibilities of Prayer."]

What Christianity, the Church, and the World Needs Today

“Christianity needs today, above all things else, men and women who can in prayer put God to the test and who can prove his promises. . . . These are the sort of men and women needed in this modern day in the church. It is not educated men who are needed for the times. It is not more money that is required. It is not more machinery, more organization, more ecclesiastical laws, but it is men and women who know how to pray, who can in prayer lay hold upon God and bring him down to earth, and move him to take hold of earth’s affairs mightily and put life and power into the church and into all of its machinery.
The church and the world greatly need saints who can bridge this wide gap between the praying done and the small number of answers received. Saints are needed whose faith is bold enough and sufficiently far-reaching to put God to the test. . . . Never was the church more in need of those who can and will test Almighty God. Never did the church need more than now these who can raise up everywhere memorials of God’s supernatural power, memorials of answers to prayer, memorials of promises fulfilled. These would do more to silence the enemy of souls, the foe of God and the adversary of the church than any modern scheme or present day plan for the success of the gospel. Such memorials reared by praying people would dumbfound God’s foes, strengthen weak saints, and would fill strong saints with triumphant rapture.
The most prolific source of infidelity and that which maligns and hinders praying, and that which obscures the being and glory of God most effectually, is unanswered prayer. Better not to pray at all than to go through dead form, which secures no answer, brings no glory to God, and supplies no good to man. Nothing so hardens the heart and nothing so blinds us to the unseen and the eternal, as this kind of prayerless praying.”

Source: E. M. Bounds, The Complete Works of E. M. Bounds (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1990), 197-198. [Chapter 12, “Answered Prayer (Continued)" of "The Possibilities of Prayer.”]

Prayer and Purity

"A prayerless spirit has no affinity for a clean heart. Prayer and a pure heart go hand in hand. Purity of heart follows praying, while prayer is the natural, spontaneous outflowing of a heart made clean by the blood of Jesus Christ."

Source: E. M. Bounds, The Complete Works of E. M. Bounds (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1990), 158. [Chapter 3 "Prayer and the Promises (Continued)" of "The Possibilities of Prayer."]

"Heavenly Father, may prayer and purity permeate my life so that You are pleased. Amen."

Prayer for Purity, Humility, Love, and Faith

Thou who art over us,
Thou who art one of us,
Thou who art—
Also within us,
May all see Thee—in me also,
May I prepare the way for Thee,
May I thank Thee for all that shall fall to my lot,
May I also not forget the needs of others,
Keep me in Thy love
As Thou wouldest that all should be kept in mine.
May everything in this my being be directed to Thy glory
And may I never despair
For I am under Thy hand,
And in Thee is all power and goodness.

Give me a pure heart—that I may see Thee,
A humble heart—that I may hear Thee,
A heart of love—that I may serve Thee,
A heart of faith—that I may abide in Thee.

[Dag Hammarskjöld, Markings, Trans. by Leif Sjöberg and W. H. Auden (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc./Faber and Faber, Ltd., 1964), 83.]

The Prayer Life of Jesus

"Since Christ was God, why must He pray?
By Him all things were known and made,
Omniscient and omnipotent,
Why need He ever ask for aid?
Ah! but He put His glory by,
Forgot a while His power great,
Humbled Himself, took human form
And stripped Himself of royal state.

For Christ was also Man; to feel
Man's strongest tempting, and to know
His utmost weakness, He became
Like other men and suffered so.
And touched with our infirmities,
For those few years like us to be,
He still remembers we are dust,
Since He was tempted like as we.

But well He knew the source of help,
Whence comes all power, strength and peace,
In blest communion with His God,
Care and perplexity would cease.
When all earth's sorrow and its sin
Too heavy on His spirit weighed,
Quiet and solitude He sought
And to His Father prayed."

--Annie Johnson Flint

"More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of."

"If thou shouldst never see my face again,
Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer
Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice
Rise like a fountain for me night and day.
For what are men better than sheep or goats
That nourish a blind life within the brain,
If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer
Both for themselves and those who call them friend?"

From "Idylls of the King" by Alfred Lord Tennyson

In the Beginning Glenn Created A Blog

This is my first post on my first ever blog! I know that I have much to learn about this hyper-fast growing genre of technology but I look forward to it.

As I embark upon this technological journey, I re-offer to my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, all that I am or ever aspire to be.

"Set a guard, O LORD, over my mouth;
Keep watch over the door of my lips [and my fingers on the keyboard]" (Psalm 141:3)

"Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart [and my blog-posts]
Be acceptable in Your sight,
O LORD, my strength and my Redeemer" (Psalm 19:14)

Heavenly Father, may you use my feeble writings, as a blessing and encouragement to my family (spiritual and biological) and friends, as a faithful testimony to those who do not know You as King of kings and Lord of lords, and as a creative outlet for me to proclaim Your name to the nations. Indeed, may You use my writings in the way that will bring most honor and glory to You, for You alone are worthy of all worship and praise both now and forever. Amen.