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Words taken from E.M. Bounds "Prayer and Spiritual Warfare".

Our Lord was a man of prayer. He magnified the Word of God and often quoted the Scriptures.
Right through His earthly life, Jesus observed Sabbath-keeping, churchgoing, and the reading of
the Word of God. His prayer intermingled with them all: "And he came to Nazareth, where he had
been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and
stood up for to read (Luke 4:16).

Prayer and the House of God

A church should be a sacred place, set apart from all unhallowed and secular uses, for the
worship of God. As worship is prayer, the house of God is a place set apart for worship. It is no
common place. It is where God dwells, where He meets with His people, and where He delights
in the worship of His saints. Prayer is always proper in the house of God. When prayer is a
stranger there, it ceases to be God's house at all. Our Lord put particular emphasis on what the
church is to be when He cast out the buyers and sellers in the temple. He repeated the words
from Isaiah: "It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer" (Matt. 21:13). He makes
prayer preeminent above all else in the house of God. Those who sidetrack prayer or seek to
minimize it pervert the church of God and make it something less than it is ordained to be.

Prayer is perfectly at home in the house of God. It is no stranger, no mere guest; it belongs
there. It has a peculiar affinity for the place. It has a divine appointment to be there. The house
of God is a holy place for united worship (prayer).

The life, power, and glory of the church is prayer. The life of its members is dependent on
prayer. The presence of God is secured and retained by prayer. Without it, the church is lifeless
and powerless. Prayer converts even the brick, mortar, and lumber into a sanctuary, a Holy of
Holies, where the Skekinah glory dwells. Prayer separates it, in spirit and in purpose, from all
other buildings, sanctifies it, sets it apart for God, and conserves it from all common and
mundane affairs.

Without prayer, a church is like a body without spirit; it is a dead, inanimate thing. A church with
prayer in it has God in it. When prayer is set aside, God is outlawed. When prayer becomes an
unfamiliar exercise, then God Himself is a stranger there. Prayer should be the chief attraction for
all spiritually-minded churchgoers. While it is conceded that the preaching of the Word has an
important place in the house of God, prayer is its predominant, distinguishing feature.

As God's house is a house of prayer, prayer should enter into and underlie everything that is
done there. The house of God is a divine schoolhouse, in which the lesson of prayer is taught,
where men and women learn to pray, and where they graduate from the school of prayer.

Any church that calls itself the house of God but fails to magnify and teach the great lesson of
prayer should change its teaching to conform to the divine prayer pattern, or it should change the
name of its building to something other than a church.

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