Others like purpose in prayer Features >>
The Reality Of Prayer
The Prayer Warrior's Way
Mary’s Prayers And Martha’s Recipes
The Purpose And Power Of Praise And Worship
Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled
Getting Result In The War Room: Prayer
101 Weapons Of Spiritual Warfare
Praying Your Way Out Of Bondage
Command The Morning
Rise And Be Healed!
About the Book
"Purpose In Prayer" by Edward M. Bounds is a Christian book that emphasizes the importance of prayer in the life of a believer. Bounds discusses the power and effectiveness of prayer, as well as the different types of prayer that can be used to communicate with God. He emphasizes the essential role of prayer in fulfilling our purpose and aligning ourselves with God's will. The book encourages readers to prioritize prayer in their daily lives and seek a deeper, more intimate relationship with God through prayer.
A.W. Tozer (Aiden Wilson Tozer)
Early life
Tozer hailed from a tiny farming community in western La Jose, Pennsylvania. He was converted to Christianity as a teenager in Akron, Ohio: While on his way home from work at a tire company, he overheard a street preacher say, "If you don't know how to be saved ... just call on God, saying, 'Lord, be merciful to me a sinner.'" Upon returning home, he climbed into the attic and heeded the preacher's advice.
Pastor
In 1919, five years after his conversion and without formal education in Christian theology, Tozer accepted an offer to serve as pastor of his first church. That began 44 years of ministry associated with the Christian and Missionary Alliance (C&MA), a Protestant Evangelical denomination, 33 of them serving as a pastor in several different congregations (his first, a small storefront church in Nutter Fort, West Virginia). Later, he served thirty years (1928 to 1959) as the pastor of Southside Alliance Church in Chicago; the final years of his life he spent as pastor of Avenue Road Church in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Observing contemporary Christian living, Tozer felt that the church was on a dangerous course toward compromising with "worldly" concerns.
Born into poverty, Tozer was self-educated and taught himself what he missed in high school and university.
Author
Tozer began writing in 1931 for the denominational magazine of the Christian and Missionary Alliance, Alliance Weekly (now Alliance Life), which became the platform from which his writing career emerged. He later wrote the monthly column “There’s Truth in It” (1936–37) and “A Word in Season” (1944–46). In May 1950, he became the editor of the Alliance Weekly, a position he filled until his death in 1963.
At the urging of David W. Fant, publications secretary of the C&MA, Tozer wrote biographies of A. B. Simpson (1943) and Robert A. Jaffray (1947). It was the publication of his third book, The Pursuit of God (1948), that made Tozer a household name among evangelicals. In addition to the 12 books he published in his lifetime, more than 40 other books have been compiled from his magazine features, editorials, and transcribed sermons.
During his lifetime, Tozer’s works were published by Christian Publications, Inc., the denominational press operated by the C&MA. The publishing house declared bankruptcy in 2006 and was purchased by WingSpread Publishers of Camp Hill, Pennsylvania.[8] In November 2013, Moody Publishers acquired Wingspread from parent company Zur Ltd., a transaction that included more than 60 Tozer books and pamphlets. Some of Tozer’s works are now in the public domain and have been issued by multiple publishers.
Personal life
Tozer had seven children, six sons and a daughter. Living a simple and non-materialistic lifestyle, he and his wife, Ada Cecelia Pfautz, never owned a car, preferring bus and train travel. Even after becoming a well-known Christian author, Tozer signed away much of his royalties to those who were in need.
Prayer was of vital personal importance for Tozer. "His preaching as well as his writings were but extensions of his prayer life," comments his biographer, James L. Snyder, in the book In Pursuit of God: The Life Of A.W. Tozer. "He had the ability to make his listeners face themselves in the light of what God was saying to them," writes Snyder.
Death and legacy
Tozer died on May 13, 1963, after suffering a heart attack. He was buried in Chicago, and later the family had his remains reinterred at Ellet Cemetery, Akron, Ohio. A simple marker reads: A. W. Tozer—A Man of God. The Alliance Weekly ran a memorial issue with numerous tributes and excerpts. The same issue also featured “God’s Greatest Gift to Man," a transcription of his final sermon. A few months prior to his death, Tozer had submitted the manuscript to The Christian Book of Mystical Verse, which was released in 1964 as his final book. His official publisher, Christian Publications, released many titles after his death, based on his magazine articles and sermon transcriptions. These continue in print with Moody Publishers. Several other publishers have released his public domain works.
In 2000, The Pursuit of God was named to Christianity Today’s list of 100 “Books of the Century.” In 2006, Knowledge of the Holy was named in “The Top 50 Books That Have Shaped Evangelicals.” Contemporary Christian music artist Lauren Barlow of BarlowGirl later published a compilation of stories told by 59 artists, writers, and leaders about A.W. Tozer’s personal inspiration.
God So Loved the World, He Sent You
Long before he made the world, God the Father prepared to send his one and only Son to earth. He loved him “before the foundation of the world” (John 17:24), and yet even then he knew how much the baby born in Bethlehem would suffer. We know the Father knew because our names were “written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who was slain” (Revelation 13:8). Before God planted the first pine tree, the Christmas story had already been planned. Before he lit the sun with fire, he had already begun digging the ground where the cross would one day stand. He always knew that Jesus would one day take on flesh and, eventually, shed his own blood. Can you imagine the all-wise, all-powerful author of life and history preparing his Son to live as one of us — and to die a uniquely horrible death? Even our wildest dreams would look like scratch drawings on a napkin compared with the intimacy they shared in divinity for an eternity before history — before there was even time to count. God So Loved His Son But the sent one himself gives us stunning glimpses into how the Father had prepared him: “I lay down my life for the sheep. And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. . . . For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father.” (John 10:15–18) When the Son came to earth, he came covered in his Father’s love. When the Father set his love on us, at the excruciating expense of his Son, he did not love his Son less. He loved him more for his sacrifice. Jesus says, “For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again” (John 10:17). God’s love for his Son didn’t keep him from sending his Son to save us. Love for his Son prompted God to send him. The Father sent Jesus with unparalleled love, and with unrivaled authority. Jesus says, “No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again” (John 10:18). The Father harnessed all the power of heaven for this mission, and entrusted it to the humble child from Nazareth. He held nothing back. Jesus, who was human in every way that we are, could say the scandalous and unfathomable: “All that the Father has is mine” (John 16:15). As much as he suffered as man, he did not come to earth empty-handed; he came bearing the universe. He came as God. But with the limitless love and unassailable authority of his Father, he was sent to die. Feel the awful heaviness of the full meaning of Christmas in his words: “I lay down my life for the sheep. . . . I lay down my life. . . . This charge I have received from my Father” (John 10:15, 17–18). The Father did not merely send Jesus to take on flesh, but to lay it down. The Spirit conceived a Christ to be crucified. For lost and wandering and helpless sheep — for you and me. Jesus was sent to lose everything that we might gain everything. He became poor — in birth, in life, and in death — that we might inherit his heavenly wealth (2 Corinthians 8:9). Sent in love, sent with authority, sent to die — and to save. As the Father Sent Me The wonder and weight of Christmas — a sending conceived in the mind of God before the foundation of the world, a sending on which every event in history turns and hangs — fills one sentence from Jesus with staggering significance. He prays to the Father, “As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.” (John 17:18) Nothing compares to the Creator of the universe sending the radiance of his own glory, the exact imprint of his nature into his creation. Until Jesus sends you. After he rises from the dead, he says it again, before he ascends into heaven, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you” (John 20:21). As the Father sent the Son — planned before the foundation of the world, demonstrating God’s infinite beauty, strength, and worth, paying for the sins of people from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation, with billions and billions of destinies hanging in the balance — so the Son now sends us. As the Father sent his Son on a specific and spectacular mission, so the Son has set us loose on a world in need of hope (John 17:21, 23). As the Father sent his Son with precious words to proclaim, so the Son has given us something to say, a Lord to adore, and a commission to obey (John 17:14; Matthew 28:19–20). As the Father sent the Son to suffer for love, so the Son sends his sheep into the wolf pack (Matthew 10:16). As the Father set joy before his Son, so the Son has promised us his very own joy (John 17:13), now in part, forever in full. As the Father sent his Son with love, so the Son has loved us (John 15:13). And so he has sent us into the world. God So Loved the World We have not descended from heaven, but in Christ we are not of this world. Jesus says of you and me, “They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world” (John 17:16). But while neither he nor we are of this world, he has stationed us here for now. Jesus prays, “I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world” (John 17:11). He is not in the world anymore, but we are. Instead of staying to bring in by himself all the sheep who are not yet of this fold, he ascended to mission control — the throne of the universe — and sent us in after him. Having completed his once-for-all mission of securing redemption — the work only he could do — he entrusted us with telling the whole world what he had done. He says to his disciples, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:18–19). As he had heard the Father say, “Go,” he now sends us into the world — with his authority, his words, his help, his joy, and his own presence: “Behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). To whom has God sent you? The people in your family, on your street, near your office are not the offspring of chance. God lovingly placed them within arm’s reach of forgiveness, hope, and joy — by placing you near them. They were not alive a hundred years ago, but they are now. They will not live where they do in a hundred years, but they do now. God arranged and orchestrated every person in your life for his glory (Acts 17:26–27), just as he guided all of human history for thousands of years before Christ came — and then he sent you precisely where you are — with words and joy, in love, to suffer and say and save. As you celebrate the greatest sending again this Christmas, remember God so loved the world, that he also sent you. Article by Marshall Segal
