E. M. Bounds on Prayer

Prayer is a privilege, a sacred, princely privilege.  Prayer is a duty, an obligation most binding, and most imperative, which should hold us to it.  But prayer is more than a privilege, more than a duty.  It is a means, an instrument, a condition.  Not to pray is to lose much more that to fail in the exercise and enjoyment of a high, or sweet privilege.  Not to pray is to fail along lines far more important than even the violation of an obligation. 
         
Prayer is the appointed condition of getting God’s aid.  This aid is as manifold and illimitable as God’s ability, and as varied and exhaustless is that ad as man’s need.  ~E. M. Bounds, The Reality of Prayer, 228