Edward McKendree Bounds Quotes

I think one thing is that prayer has become more useful, interesting, fruitful, and... almost involuntary in my life.

The men who have done the most for God in this world have been early on their knees. He who fritters away the early morning, its opportunity and freshness, in other pursuits than seeking God will make poor headway seeking Him the rest of the day. If God is not first in our thoughts and efforts in the morning, He will be in the last place the remainder of the day.

We may learn by practice such things upon earth as shall be of use to us in heaven. Piety, unostentatious piety, is never out of place.

Our praying, to be strong, must be buttressed by holy living. The life of faith perfects the prayer of faith.

Your life is going to be determined by your prayer life.

The stream of praying cannot rise higher than the fountain of living.

Well-developed faith results in well-defined prayers, and well-defined prayers result in a well-lived life.

When God intends great mercy for his people, the first thing he doth is to set them a praying.

Prayer can come in only when fasting has done its work. It can make fasting easy and bearable.

If you want to pray better, you have to pray more.

By affliction prayer is quickened, for our prayers are very apt to grow languid and formal in a time of ease.

Without extended, concentrated prayer, the ministry of the Word withers. And when the ministry of the Word declines, faith (Rom. 10:17; Gal. 3:2, 5) and holiness (John 17:17) decline. Activity may continue, but life and power and fruitfulness fade away. Therefore, whatever opposes prayer opposes the whole work of ministry.

The whole function of the life of prayer is, then, to enlighten and strengthen our conscience so that it not only knows and perceives the outward, written precepts of the moral and divine laws, but above all lives God's law in concrete reality by perfect and continual union with His will.

Prayer opens our lives for God so his will can be done in and through us, because in true prayer we habitually put ourselves into the attitude of willingness to do whatever God wills.

A growing community must integrate three elements: a life of silent prayer, a life of service and above all of listening to the poor, and a community life through which all its members can grow in their own gift.

Seek to know God in your closets, call upon him in the fields. Follow the directions of the Book of Mormon, and pray over, and for your families, your cattle, your flocks, your herds, your corn, and all things that you possess [see Alma 34:18-27]; ask the blessing of God upon all your labors, and everything that you engage in.

The men upon whose shoulders rested the initial responsibility of Christianizing the world came to Jesus with one supreme request. They did not say, 'Lord, teach us to preach'; Lord, teach us to do miracles,' or 'Lord, teach us to be wise'...but they said, 'Lord, teach us to pray.'

When I am praying the most eloquently, I am getting the least accomplished in my prayer life. But when I stop getting eloquent and give God less theology and shut up and just gaze upward and wait for God to speak to my heart He speaks with such power that I have to grab a pencil and a notebook and take notes on what God is saying to my heart.

People do not drift toward Holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated.

A complete fast is a complete and literal denial of self. It is the truest prayer.

The shortening of devotions starves the soul, it grows lean and faint

He who is too busy to pray will be too busy to live a holy life. Satan had rather we let the grass grow on the path to our prayer chamber than anything else.

There are two principal points of attention necessary for the preservation of this constant spirit of prayer which unites us with God; we must continually seek to cherish it, and we must avoid everything that tends to make us lose it.

He who prays as he ought will endeavor to live as he prays.

In order to enjoy the Word, we ought to continue to read it, and the way to obtain a spirit of prayer, is, to continue praying; for the less we read the Word of God, the less we desire to read it, and the less we pray, the less we desire to pray.