Scriptural Prayers

Our prayer lives can be enriched by our Bible reading if we ask ourselves this simple question: How can we use the words we were just reading?
Every verse or paragraph or chapter in the Bible can help us turn toward God. Do we need some help in getting started? Why not begin by reading the Psalms and the prayers of Jesus and Paul? These actual prayers in Scripture (and there are many more!) are recorded for us to demonstrate the many varied forms that the Holy Spirit might use to bring us to the throne of grace.

OR: Read the prayers of the saints that have gone before us. There are many beautiful collections of Scriptural prayers, including the one shown above that I have been using for almost a year now. For example, here's how the author of Pride and Prejudice made good use of Romans 2:4: "Or do you presume on the riches of His kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?"

Jane Austen's Prayer: "Look with mercy on the sins we have this day committed and in mercy make us feel them deeply, that our repentance may be sincere and our resolution steadfast of endeavoring against the commission of such in the future. Teach us to understand the sinfulness of our own hearts, and bring to our knowledge every fault of temper and every evil habit in which we have indulged to the discomfort of our fellow creatures, and the danger of our own souls. May we now, and on each return of night, consider how the past day has been spent by us, what have been our prevailing thoughts, words, and actions during it, and how far we can acquit ourselves of evil. Have we thought irreverently of you, have we disobeyed your commandments, have we neglected any known duty, or willingly given pain to any human being? Incline us to ask our hearts these questions, oh God, and save us from deceiving ourselves by pride or vanity. Give us a thankful sense of the blessings in which we live, of the many comforts of our lot, that we may not deserve to lose them by discontent or indifference."

Candy's final thoughts: We mustn't be intimidated or overwhelmed with the sheer volume of this prayer based on only one verse in Scripture, nor should we compare our prayers with the beauty of this one written by an acclaimed author! Instead, let's ask the Holy Spirit to intercede for us even when we only have "...groanings too deep for words." God hears the prayers of ALL His people. 💜

Bound or Bound?

I was walking around my neighborhood last week when the hymn "On Jordan's Stormy Banks" came through my headphones and flowed into my brain and heart. The first time I listened with my heart which is where I always begin when hearing just about anything - whether secular news or a touching sermon illustration. Very predictably, I cried.

The second round of "On Jordan's Stormy Banks" caused my brain to go into overdrive. I started wondering about the word "bound," since it is repeated many times in the course of the hymn. I began thinking about the many ways we, as people of God, can be bound. When I arrived back home I searched for the definition of "bound" and here is one dictionary's range of meanings for the word:

tied; in bonds:

a bound prisoner.

made fast as if by a band or bond:

She is bound to her family.

secured within a cover, as a book.

under a legal or moral obligation:

He is bound by the terms of the contract.

destined; sure; certain:

It is bound to happen.

Very interesting definition, especially for God's saints. We are bound in sin through Adam, but now are part of the family of God. We are bound in our souls by the Lord's comfort and refuge, "...more happy, but not more secure, the glorified spirits in heav'n."  Because of the contract between the Father and the Son before the world was even created, Jesus is committed to saving us. Therefore we have a confident expectation and a sure hope of being "...Bound for the Promised Land." Good news indeed!!!

[Please listen to the link below with music and lyrics provided by Indelible Grace which grew out of Reformed University Fellowship, our (PCA) denomination's college ministry. Their first album was simply titled Indelible Grace, taken from a line in the Augustus Toplady hymn "A Debtor to Mercy Alone."  This particular selection ("From Jordan's Stormy Banks") was recorded in a Hymn Sing in 2010 at the Ryman Auditorium, more commonly called The Grand Ole Opry.]

Let's all thank God for His indelible grace in bringing us one day across the Jordan into the Promised Land.  Click here.  

Guilty As Charged...But Forgiven.

I have always loved reading the prayers of those who have lived in previous centuries. The Valley of Vision, Piercing Heaven, and God's Minute are three collections of Puritan prayers which I return to again and again.

My new favorite pray-er is Jeremy Taylor who lived from 1613-1667. My Prayer Bible describes him as an "Anglican bishop who served as chaplain to King Charles I and was well known for his devotional writings, which stressed piety and were valued for their clear prose and vivid imagery." And according to Wikipedia, he has been called the "Shakespeare of the Pulpit."  Fine praise indeed!

I have chosen to share a prayer of repentance of Taylor's that is both lovely and awful at the same time; the language he uses is eloquent, but the particulars of sin caused me to wince. Please tell me what you think.

Taylor's prayer: "You have given me a whole life to serve you in, and to advance my hopes of heaven; and this precious time I have thrown away upon my sins and vanities, being improvident of my time and of my talent, and of your grace and my own advantages, resisting your Spirit and quenching him. I have been a great lover of myself, and yet used many ways to destroy myself. I have pursued my temporal ends with greediness and indirect means. I am revengeful and unthankful, forgetting benefits, but not so soon forgetting injuries; curious and murmuring, a great breaker of promises. I have not loved my neighbor's good, nor advanced it in all things, where I could. I have been unlike you in all things. I am unmerciful and unjust, a foolish admirer of things below, and careless of heaven and the ways that lead there. But for your name's sake, O Lord, be merciful unto my sin, for it is great."

Candy's thoughts: Now reread the prayer and count the number of times your soul says, "Ouch!" or "Guilty as Charged!" Yet with the Lord, there is forgiveness. What mercy!

Quotables #4

It's time to clean up the screenshots on my phone, and so I present to you the best quotes I have found since January. Get ready to vote on your favorites!

Mine are #2, #3, and #9.

1. "If there is one maverick molecule in the universe...outside the scope of God's sovereign ordination, then there isn't the slightest confidence you can have that any promise that God has ever made about the future will come to pass."
     R. C. Sproul

2.  "He foresaw my every fall, my every sin, my every backsliding; yet, nevertheless fixed His heart upon me."
     A. W. Pink

3. "The day is coming when there will be a congregation that will never break up, and a Sabbath that will never end, a song of praise that will never cease, and an assembly that will never be dispersed."
     J. C. Ryle

4.  "To know that nothing happens in God's world apart from God's will may frighten the godless, but it stabilizes the saints."
     J. I. Packer

[Interruption to point out that the previous 4 quotes came from men with only 'initials' for their first names. Let me try that out:  C. D. Magee 😉]

5.  "The remarkable thing about God is that when you fear God, you fear nothing else, whereas if you do not fear God, you fear everything else."
     Oswald Chambers

6.  "If you believe in a God who controls the BIG things, you have to believe in a God who controls the little things, It is we, of course, to whom things look little or BIG."
     Elisabeth Elliot

7.  "There is a God in heaven who overrules all things for the best; and this is the comfort of my soul."
     David Brainerd

8.  "Do not ask God to confirm your opinion; ask Him to make your opinion conform to His truth."
     Charles Spurgeon
   
9.  "The music must not turn the church into an audience enjoying the music but into a congregation singing the Lord's praises in His presence."
     John Clavin

10.  "Lord, send me anywhere, only go with me. Lay any burden on me, only sustain me. Sever any ties but the tie that binds me to Thy service and to Thy heart."
     David Livingstone