Prayer on Miscellanea

Retire Like a Plentiful Guest from a Thankful Table

Fri, 19 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The calendar tells me that if I live until next Monday, I shall enter my seventy-sixth year. I believe you will pray for me on that day. My eyes, ears, and legs likewise admonish me that I grow older. My writing days seem almost over, as I cannot see well to write; but I make an effort to send you one letter more, which may probably be the last you will receive.

Thankful Guest from a Plentiful Table

Sat, 31 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Pray likewise for me, that no gross imprudence or misconduct may stain the latter part of my life — but that I may be enabled to exemplify in myself what I have labored to inculcate upon others from the pulpit. I have observed in some good men and good ministers, improprieties in their latter days, which I have been willing to ascribe rather to the infirmities of old age, than to a defect in real grace. I pray daily to be preserved from these, and I request your assistance. I have known good men, in advanced life, to be garrulous, peevish, dogmatic, self-important, with some symptoms of jealousy, and perhaps envy, toward those who are upon the increase — while they feel themselves decreasing. Do, my friend, pray earnestly that it may not be so with me — but that I may retire, if laid aside, like a thankful guest from a plentiful table, and may rejoice to see others coming forward to serve the Lord, (I hope better and more successfully,) when I can serve him no longer.

What do you think about when you are in bed?

Wed, 06 Jan 2021 12:18:02 +0000

What do you think about when you are in bed, either settling down to sleep or waking up? There are those who ‘work out evil on their beds’! (Mic. 2:1). And there are those who ‘sing aloud on their beds. The high praises of God are in their mouths’ (Psa. 149:5-6). There are those who ‘devise mischief on their beds’ (Psa. 36:4). And there are those who commune with their hearts and remember God and meditate on him on their beds’ (Psa. 4:4; 63:6).

Not My Deserving

Wed, 06 Jan 2021 12:17:01 +0000

Therefore, kind Jesus, since I cannot pay thee, I do adore thee, and will ever pray thee, think on thy pity and thy love unswerving, not my deserving.

Poor and Empty in Ourselves

Mon, 31 Aug 2020 01:07:22 +0000

His own glory is most displayed, and our safety best secured, by keeping us quite poor and empty in ourselves, and supplying us from one minute to another, according to our need. This, if any thing, will prevent our boasting, and keep a sense of gratitude awake in our hearts. This is well adapted to quicken us to prayer, and furnish us with a thousand occasions for praise, which would otherwise escape our notice.

Humility to Ask for Prayer

Sat, 27 Oct 2018 11:16:26 +0000

If we desire to be perceived as competent and in control, we will not ask for prayer. If we know that humans, by nature, are spiritually needy, and God’s plan is that we turn both to him and to other people for help, we will ask for prayer.

Habitual Resignation

Sun, 04 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Let us strive and pray for a habitual resignation to his will—for he does all things well.

It is never ill with us—but when our evil hearts doubt or forget this plainest of truths!

Christ and the Day of Atonement

Sat, 16 Dec 2017 00:00:00 +0000

For Stephen Charnock, the high priest’s activity on the Day of Atonement in Lev 16 prefigured Christ’s priestly ministry in at least three ways.

First, his sacrificing animals outside the tent was a type of Christ’s death.

Second, his entrance into the Holy of Holies was a type of Christ’s ascension to heaven.

Third, his sprinkling blood and burning incense inside the Holy of Holies was a type of Christ’s intercession, both in his presentation of his wounds to the Father (sprinkling) as well as in his pleas for the saints (incense).

Intercession of Christ

Thu, 14 Dec 2017 00:00:00 +0000

But the fact that from the seat of exalted and undimmed glory and in the exercise of high priestly prerogative he interposes petition to the Father on behalf of every one of his own, to the end that they also may be glorified with him, should cause us to be filled with holy and adoring amazement at the condescensions of trinitarian love and grace.

And the effect will then be that we shall be humbled to the point of being speechless, in a true sense exasperated, at the thought of the intercession which is interjected to save us from the doom which our continuing sinfulness and unfaithfulness deserve and saved to a glory which consists in glorification with Christ.

Heart-Eating Anxieties

Fri, 18 Nov 2016 00:00:00 +0000

We have liberty to express our desires to the Lord; but the more simply we can commit the how, the when, and the where, to his wisdom and will, the more we shall be freed from heart eating anxieties.

What Thou Wilt, When Thou Wilt, How Thou Wilt

Sun, 06 Nov 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Help me with your prayers, that I may trust him too, and be at length enabled to say without reserve,

What thou wilt, when thou wilt, how thou wilt.

I had rather speak these three sentences from my heart, in my mother tongue, than be master of all the languages of Europe.

Sinner, Pray Hard

Sun, 30 Oct 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Do you think such an exalted Lamb paid merely a small price with a meager sacrifice for our sins? Pray hard for you are quite a sinner.

Spurgeon on Prayer Meetings

Wed, 19 Oct 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Brethren, we shall never see much change for the better in our churches till the prayer meeting occupies a higher place in the esteem of Christians.

Pray for Sinners

Tue, 11 Oct 2016 00:00:00 +0000

If you pity an ox or an ass going astray, will you not pity a soul going astray from God, who has lost his way and his wits, and is upon the precipice of damnation.

Nay, not only pity sinners, but pray for them. Though they curse, do you pray; you will pray for persons demented; sinners are demented.

Wicked men are going to execution, sin is the halter which strangles them, death turns them off the ladder, and hell is their burning place; and will you not pray for them, when you see them in such danger?

Living in Dependence on Him

Thu, 22 Sep 2016 00:00:00 +0000

God will continually put His people into situations where they must live in dependence on Him expressed through prayer.

Children Praying Our Father?

Mon, 08 Aug 2016 00:00:00 +0000

For, despite protests to the contrary, it is difficult to see how evangelicals can, with theological consistency, teach their children to say ‘Our Father’ and to sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs with any theological consistency apart from the undergirding relationship established by God’s covenant promise and the principle that they belong by covenant to the community of God’s people.

Pray for the Church

Sun, 03 Jul 2016 00:00:00 +0000

He who does not continue to pray for the Lord’s glory to remain on the church is not worthy of its privileges. Prayer, then, for the good, prosperity, flourishing peace, increase, edification, and protection of the church is a duty every day required of all its members.

Paul’s Fervency in Prayer

Thu, 28 Jan 2016 00:00:00 +0000

[Paul’s] unaffected fervency in prayer is not whipped-up emotionalism but the overflow of his love for his brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus. That means that if we are to improve our praying, we must strengthen our loving.

When Our Faith is Weak

Tue, 17 Nov 2015 00:00:00 +0000

When our faith is weak, when we lapse into sin, believers always have the right and the freedom to go with confidence to the throne of grace and plead on the basis of the faithfulness of him whose gift of grace and calling are irrevocable.

Believers do not pray out of doubt and despair; they do not pray as though they are no longer children of God and again face eternal damnation; they pray from within the faith as children to the Father who is in heaven, and says Amen to their prayer.

Beeke on Prayer Meetings

Sun, 03 May 2015 00:00:00 +0000

If your minister were to announce that at your forthcoming prayer meeting, the apostle Paul would appear, the entire congregation would attend. That, if course, will not happen, but something more important will: the Lord Jesus Christ will be there.

God's Ambassadors

Sun, 15 Mar 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Though you should deeply appreciate your minister’s efforts to faithfully bring the Word of God, pray that you see ’no man, save Jesus only’ (Matt 17:8). Ministers are simply God’s ambassadors, bringing you the Word of God (2 Cor. 5:20, Heb. 13:7).

Serving Your Country

Mon, 17 Feb 2014 00:00:00 +0000

People do their country more service by pleading for it in prayer than by finding fault with things they have no power to alter.

True Wisdom

Sun, 29 Dec 2013 00:00:00 +0000

I would ask you to pray for us, if I were sure you prayed for yourself; but whether you will thank me for it or not I must tell you that I pray for you often. Oh! how should I rejoice to see my wise brother begin to be suspected for a fool. This must be before you will be truly wise in the best sense.

Prayer for Unity

Wed, 20 Nov 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Christ’s prayer for unity was not born of unfamiliarity with the history of God’s people nor from his inability to govern it. His prayer is the guarantee that unity already exists in him and that in due time, accomplished by him, it will also be manifest in all believers.

Not to Us

Sun, 18 Aug 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Yet it is, perhaps, one of the hardest struggles of the Christian life to learn this sentence-‘Not unto us, not unto us, but unto thy name be glory.’ It is a lesson which God is ever teaching us, and teaching us sometimes by most painful discipline.

Calvin on Prayer

Sat, 09 Mar 2013 00:00:00 +0000

We must, therefore, maintain both of these truths, that He freely anticipates our wishes, and yet that we obtain by prayer what we ask.

Calvin's Prayer

Sun, 09 Dec 2012 00:00:00 +0000

By your Spirit destroy the wickedness of our heart, and restore us to a sound mind, that we may ever cleave to you with a true and sincere heart, that being fortified by your defense, we may continue safe even amidst all kinds of danger, until at length you gather us into that blessed rest, which has been prepared for us in heaven by our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

God's Bidding

Thu, 19 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0000

God bids us to do what we cannot, that we may know what we ought to seek from Him.