Prayer and Full Surrender

I was just reading a chapter this morning in E. M. Bounds book on prayer. Here are a few quotes to ponder:

..."Entire dedication to God and full surrender, which carry the whole being in a flame of holy consecration, give wings to faith and energy to prayer. Full surrender opens the door to the throne of grace. It brings strong influence to bear on Almighty God......this consecration takes hold of the entire man and dedicates the whole life to God. "

"Prayer is not mere form of words. It is not just calling upon a name. PRAYER IS OBEDIENCE. It is founded on the unbending rock of obedience to God...."

"If the will of God does not master the life, the praying will be nothing but sickly sentiment. If prayer does not inspire, sanctify, and direct our work, then self-will enters and ruins both the work and the worker."

"Obedience to God helps faith as no other attribute possibly can. ...It requries no straining to exercise it. Obedience to God makes it easy to believe and trust God. Where the spirit of obedience totally saturates the soul, and the will is perfectly surrendered to God, faith becomes a reality. It also does this wehn there is a fixed, unalterable purpose to obey God. Faith then becomes almost involuntary. After obedience it is the next natural step. It is easily and readily taken. The difficulty in prayer then, is not with faith but with obedience, which is faith's foundation."

"If we want to pray well and get the most our of our praying, we must look at our obedience. We must look at the secret springs of action and the loyalty of our heart to God. Obedience is the groundwork of effective praying. "

"Likewise, lack of obedience in our lives breaks down our praying. Quite often are lives are in rebellion. Disobedience shuts the door of the prayer closet. It bars the way into the Holy of Holies. No man can truly pray who does not obey......There can be no rich, true praying when the will is not wholly and fully surrendered to God."

I remember these sobering words of Jesus in Matthew 7:21
Not everyone who calls me their Lord will get into the kingdom of heaven. Only the ones who obey my Father in heaven will get in.

or in the Message version:

Knowing the correct password—saying 'Master, Master,' for instance— isn't going to get you anywhere with me. What is required is serious obedience—doing what my Father wills. I can see it now—at the Final Judgment thousands strutting up to me and saying, 'Master, we preached the Message, we bashed the demons, our God-sponsored projects had everyone talking.' And do you know what I am going to say? 'You missed the boat. All you did was use me to make yourselves important. You don't impress me one bit. You're out of here.'