DAILY PRAYER (BY SPURGEON)
Our Father God, we wish to speak with you as a man speaks with his friend. But who are we that we should draw near to you, for at best we are but dust and ashes? Yet we come through him who is our Friend, who long ago introduced some of us to you, and has given us permission to use his name with you. You know him well. He is your only-begotten Son, the Well-beloved of your heart. He is very dear to us, but he is dearer still to you.
We do remember well when you did receive us at the gate of the house, with all your Fatherly compassion, when you did, for his dear sake, “accept us in the Beloved.” Many days have passed since then; they have been happy days, days of rest compared with that wretched time in the far-off country, when we wasted our substance, and were like a waste ourselves
Amen.
VERSE OF THE DAY (COMMENTARY BY SPURGEON)
“Don’t participate in the fruitless works of darkness, but instead expose them.” (Ephesians 5:11)
Sins are “works of darkness.” They delight in concealment. They are not fit to be seen. They flourish in the darkness of the unrenewed heart. They are most fully maintained in the ignorance of a soul that is without the knowledge of the ever-blessed God. There is no true light, no real joy, in sin. They are works of darkness, too, because they tend to further darkness. The man who pursues them goes from blackness to a deeper blackness, and in the end his portion will be darkness unbroken by a ray of hope.
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