DAILY PRAYER (BY SPURGEON)
We thank you, O blessed Savior, that you are such a wonderful lover of the sons of men; so willing to go out of your way after a poor sinner as to be under a compulsion to go the way through Samaria where a guilty one shall come and speak with you, and you would speak with her. We do admire your blessed condescension in making your first convert to be one who had so foully fallen and in winning that one heart, and thereby winning so many more. Far be it from us ever to come to you in the filthy rags of our own righteousness. They are worse than nothing.
Amen.
VERSE OF THE DAY (COMMENTARY BY SPURGEON)
“All of us have become like something unclean, and all our righteous acts are like a polluted garment; all of us wither like a leaf, and our iniquities carry us away like the wind.” (Isaiah 64:6)
Oh, how precious the blood of Christ to such hearts as ours! How priceless a gift is his perfect righteousness! And how bright the hope of perfect holiness hereafter! Even now, though sin dwells in us, its power is broken. It has no dominion; it is a broken-backed snake; we are in bitter conflict with it, but it is with a vanquished foe that we have to deal. Yet a little while and we shall enter victoriously into the city where nothing defiles.
RECOMMENDED RESOURCE
A solidly-biblical path to grow in godliness*
Christians don’t fight sin or grow in godliness by mere force-of-will. Our path to growing starts by acknowledging our own powerlessness — we need God himself to change us.
And that’s because none of our actions are isolated — they come from our hearts, which are fed and nourished by many different influences.
Recently, I’ve been really enjoying Discovery, which is a Bible study curriculum for men struggling with sexual impurity. The study is so powerful because it RECOGNIZES that sin is complicated, our actions come from our hearts, and the only path to true and lasting change is NOT to start with behaviors (how to stop sinning/start doing the right thing), but to address our hearts.
The Discovery Bible study will help you understand and address your own heart.
And, by God’s grace and the kindness of HarvestUSA (the ministry that produced this study), the entire curriculum is available for free. I hope you will check it out and use it to grow and help others too.