DAILY PRAYER (BY SPURGEON)
Lord, we have yet another burden—it is that we ourselves do not love you as we should, that often we grow lukewarm and chill, and doubt creeps over us, and unbelief mars our confidence, and we sin and forget our God. O Lord, help us!
Pardon is not enough, we want sanctification. We ask you, let the weeds that grow in the seed plot of our soul be cut up by the roots. We do want to serve you. We long that every thought we think, and word we say or write, should be all for you. We want to lead consecrated lives, for we are persuaded that we only live as we live unto God, that anything else is but trifling. Oh, to be taken up as offerings wholly to be consumed upon the altar of the Lord, joyfully ascending to him in every outgoing of our life.
Amen.
VERSE OF THE DAY (COMMENTARY BY SPURGEON)
“You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:32)
Sincere belief in the word of Christ leads to emancipation from the tyrannical power of the evil that dwells in our members and from the dominating power of the sin that rules in the customs of the world. We will be free from our own prejudices, prides, and lusts. We will be free from the fear of others.
The truth known within our spirits will make a free man of us. Up to now we may have been the bondsman of self. We have inquired, “What will this thing profit me?” and thus the desire of self-aggrandizement has ruled everything, but when Jesus is our Lord, we will be free from this sordid motive.
RECOMMENDED RESOURCE
If theology is boring, you aren’t doing it right
Theology is meant to be a life-changing, worship-inducing encounter with the living God. When we ponder who God is, what he is like, and what he has done, we ought to be completely amazed.
One book to help you be amazed at our great God is None Like Him by Jen Wilkin. In each chapter, Jen unpacks one of God’s incommunicable attributes — the attributes that make God unlike us. She also describes the disastrous consequences when we try to take God’s place and live as if we were the supreme eternal ones.
This book is really wonderful (it will leave you amazed at how great our God is!) and really practical (it will help you become more like Christ).