DAILY PRAYER (BY SPURGEON)
Expecting to receive the precious help of your Holy Spirit, we would wait upon you, O Lord, with all earnestness of desire, with all sincerity of heart, and with all confidence of faith. Oh that now our fellowship may be with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ! May this be a season of access to God through Christ Jesus. May we not stand at a distance from you, but may we now speak to our God as a man speaks with his friend.
Our Father, we feel that we must praise and bless your name this morning. You have smitten us during this week; very many of our families have been made to mourn, but still, your strokes are fewer than our crimes, and lighter than our guilt.
Amen.
VERSE OF THE DAY (COMMENTARY BY SPURGEON)
“Cast your burden on the LORD, and he will sustain you; he will never allow the righteous to be shaken.” (Psalm 55:22)
There are certain burdens of care and sorrow, of which the text speaks—especially the burdens that come from the slander, reproach, and oppression of ungodly people—which we need not carry. When we are severely tried and burdened, there is something we are tempted to do.
The text is an antidote to the malady that the psalm describes or implies. “Cast your burden on the Lord” is an injunction to do one thing in the place of something else that more naturally suggests itself to our poor foolish minds. When we are in severe trouble, we are tempted to complain. As the children of God, we ought to avoid even the semblance of a complaint against our heavenly Father.
RECOMMENDED RESOURCE
Solid Truths to Boost Your Faith in God
Today we prayed that God would increase our faith and remove our unbelief. Many people act as if the only way to remove doubt and increase faith is by simply ignoring the genuine questions that we have about Christ or the Bible.
But Christ invites us to a better way — to really seek after the truth, even when we have questions and doubts, because we know that his Word has solid, truthful answers for us. You have no question that God is not able to answer.
A great resource for finding answers to some of the questions that you have is Truth Matters: Confident Faith in a Confusing World by Andreas Köstenberger, Darrell Bock, and Josh Chatraw. This book answers some of the most pressing questions for the truthfulness of Christianity and the reliability of the Bible with faithful, thorough, and easy-to-understand answers.
If you read this book, I am confident that it will increase your faith and equip you to better defend Christianity to others.