Strengthen us, O LORD JESUS
"Watch
and pray."
-MARK
13:33 [KJV]
There
is no keeping up faith except by prayer
and watchfulness. As
prayer declines in the bosom, so does the strength of faith. You may
go on neglecting prayer and supplication until every grain of faith
seems lost out of your bosom, and may come at last to think you never
knew anything of a work of God upon your heart, and have been
deceived in believing there was any grace there. By watchfulness
also is the love of God maintained. Unless you watch against your
besetting sins, against the snares spread for your feet, against the
temptations that daily and hourly beset your path, against being
overcome by the strength or subtlety of your unwearied foe, you are
sure to fall; and if you fall you will bring guilt and bondage,
darkness and distress into your mind, and cut off for a time all
friendly intercourse with God.
Therefore
you must pray and watch; for without watchfulness, prayer is of
little efficacy. And if we neglect the Scriptures, or read them
carelessly, unbelievingly, they will do us little good. They must be
read with believing eyes and heart, received as the revelation of
God, and must be mixed with faith, or assuredly they will not profit
us [HEBREWS
4:2]. The life
of God is a very deep, secret, and sacred thing in the soul. God, it
is true, will maintain it; He will not leave His work unaccomplished;
but unless we read and pray, watch and meditate, wage war against
besetting sins, and seek the Lord's face continually, we shall find
the strength and power of faith very sensibly decline; and if so,
there is no comfortable walking with God.
-Gospel
report by preacher J.C. Philpot (1802-1869 A.D.)
JANUARY
11th, EARS FROM HARVESTED SHEAVES
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