DAILY PRAYER (BY SPURGEON)
Oh, take these hearts, most glorious Lord, and keep them, for “it is the source of life” (Proverbs 4:23); and let us be the instruments in your hand, by daily vigilance, of keeping our hearts, lest in heart we go astray from the Lord our God.
Until life’s last hour may we keep the sacred pledges of our early youth. Some of us do remember our early covenant with God, when we made over to him ourselves and all that we had. We do remember when we were baptized into the sacred Name—Oh, never may we dishonor that sacred ordinance by which we declared that we were dead to the world and buried with Christ.
Amen.
VERSE OF THE DAY (COMMENTARY BY SPURGEON)
“Guard your heart above all else, for it is the source of life.” (Proverbs 4:23)
Mere moralists very often forget the heart, and deal exclusively with the lesser powers. It is as if, when the reservoir was filled with poisonous or polluted fluid, some sage counsellor should propose that all the piping had better be taken up, and fresh pipes laid down, so that the water might run through fresh channels; but who does not perceive that it would be all in vain, if the fountain-head were polluted, however good the channels.
So in vain the rules by which men hope to fashion their lives; in vain the regimen by which we seek to constrain ourselves to the semblance of goodness. unless the heart be right the very best plans of life shall fell to the ground and fail to effect their design.
RECOMMENDED RESOURCE
Being like Christ starts with your heart
Today we prayed that our entire hearts would remain dedicated to God until the very end of our lives. And we saw in God’s Word that our hearts must be right before God, not just our behavior.
Growing as a Christian is not mere behavior modification (forcing yourself to do different things or live a different way) — it’s so much bigger than that. It’s about completely changing your heart so that you love the right things and want to do the right things.
To every Christian, that sounds amazing. We all want to be more like Christ and we all want to stop sinning, but there is a lot of confusion about how that happens. How will God change our lives?
That’s the point of Matt Chandler’s book, Recovering Redemption: A Gospel-Saturated Perspective on Change. This book explains the incredible work that God is going to do in your life to redeem everything about you.
This book will fill you with thankfulness and amazement at God’s work to save you from the penalty and power of sin every day. It will also help you understand your role in fighting sin.
This is a don’t-miss book to help make you more like Jesus. I hope you’ll grab one today.