Puritan Prayer: “Divine Support”

Thou art the blessed God, happy in Thyself, source of happiness in Thy creatures, my Maker, Benefactor, Proprietor, Upholder. Thou hast produced and sustained me, supported and indulged me, saved and kept me; Thou art in every situation able to meet my needs and miseries.

May I live by Thee, live for Thee, never be satisfied with my Christian progress but as I resemble Christ; and may conformity to His principles, temper, and conduct grow hourly in my life. Let Thy unexampled love constrain me into holy obedience, and render my duty my delight. If others deem my faith folly, my meekness infirmity, my zeal madness, my hope delusion, my actions hypocrisy, may I rejoice to suffer for Thy name.

Keep me walking steadfastly towards the country of everlasting delights, that paradise-land which is my true inheritance. Support me by the strength of heaven that I may never turn back, or desire false pleasures that will disappear into nothing.  As I pursue my heavenly journey by Thy grace let me be known as a man with no aim but that of a burning desire for Thee, and the good and salvation of my fellow men.

Puritan Prayer: “Divine Support” in The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers & Devotions, ed. Arthur Bennett (2003).

“Most people just assume this basic life story—that they should study hard to get a degree to get a good job to be able to afford a house and get married and have kids and put money away for retirement…its no wonder people aren’t interested in Jesus—because they don’t see how Jesus helps them progress through their life story…that unexamined life story is shallow and flawed…As Christians we need to have a well-thought through biblical life story that can stand up to the assumed story of our culture. Jesus said, after all, to seek first the kingdom of God and everything else comes after that.”

Geoff Folland serves with Campus Crusade for Christ Australia, and is a former student of mine. This excerpt taken from his October 15, 2012 ministry update.

“Confidence is not based on you having all the resources needed to take care of yourself; confidence is based upon the truth that God is faithful.”

Roy Lessin, co-founder of DaySpring Cards, in booklet entitled, Fret Busters: 30 Reasons Not to Fear or Worry.

Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. 1 John 2:15

How Can I Determine If I Am Attached To Something?

“Selfish clingings position us in a spiritual fog hindering our supernatural vision. It then becomes difficult to discern between what is a legitimate desire and what is an inordinate attachment.  The following questions may help us in our honest self-knowledge:

Am I using created things in excess of my real needs? Example:  How many pairs of shoes do I have as opposed to how many I need? We can apply this to any material possession. How many hours do I spend viewing TV?

Do I use things for the purpose for which they were intended? Example: If my employer provides me with a computer for my work, do I spend time in using it for personal e-mail, needless internet surfing or entertainment (assuming there is a policy against such use)?

Do I make persons or things ends in themselves rather than as means to an end? Example: Is my relationship with another the way by which my own needs are provided for more than my concern for the good of the other?

In responding to the above as regards my relationships and my use of things, am I more drawn to God through them and do they cause me to think of Him more frequently?  Am I led to deeper prayer as a result?

Identifying inordinate attachments, recognizing them in oneself, and addressing them through a practical plan of detachment enables one to experience a greater freedom and to be open to the gifts that God wishes to lavish on us.”

Carmen Laudis blogpost on 9 October 2012.

“Our material wealth is not evil, in itself. It is filled with good things for our enjoyment but because of our weak, fallen, human nature, we tend to attach ourselves too closely to things, to link our hopes too tightly to them. Wealth can easily give us the illusion of being self-sufficient and being totally in control of our happiness and our destiny.

But we are, in fact, dependent on God for everything; we are weak, we are fragile, we are unable to achieve total lasting fulfillment by ourselves. Perhaps it is easier to keep this in mind in times of financial crises, when it is hard to make ends meet.”

Seán Brady, Cardinal and Archbishop of Armagh, in homily in the Diocese of Galway, Kilmacduagh & Kilfenora at Mass in Galway Cathedral, Ireland, on 11 October 2009.

“May no one, dearly beloved, make themselves strangers to good works. Let no one claim that his poverty scarcely sufficed for himself and could not help another. What is offered from little is great, and in the scale of divine justice, the quantity of gifts is not measured but the steadfastness of souls.

The “widow” in the Gospel [Luke 21:1-4] put two coins into the “treasury,” and this surpassed the gifts of all the rich. No mercy is worthless before God. No compassion is fruitless. He has given different resources to human beings, but he does not ask different affections.”

Leo the Great (c. 400-461) in Sermon 20.3.1 (FC 93.74 in ACCSL 317).

“As my greatest business is with God, so my daily business is also with Him. He purposely leaveth me under wants, and suffers necessities daily to return, and enemies to assault me, and affliction to surprise me, that I may be daily driven to him. He loveth to hear from me. He would have me be no stranger to Him…

Company never hindereth him from hearkening to my suit; He is infinite and omnipotent, and is sufficient for every individual soul, as if he had no other to look after in the world…

He is free and ready to attend and answer the groans and prayers of a contrite soul, as if he had no nobler creatures, or no higher service to regard. I am oft unready, but God is never unready; I am unready to pray, but He is not unready to hear; I am unready to come to God, to walk with Him, and to solace my soul with him, but He is never unready to entertain me.”

Richard Baxter (1615-1691) English Puritan Church Leader, in The Practical Works of Richard Baxter (London: George Virtue, 1838) 871-872

“He was not foolishly indifferent to the value of money, as those who had business transactions with him were well aware; but its chief value in his eyes consisted in the opportunities it gave him to promote the happiness of others. Hundreds of instances of his extraordinary liberality might be mentioned, and it is probable that many more are quite unknown. The following [anecdote], furnished by his personal friends, will show that his bounty was dealt out with no sparing hand.

A gentleman, at whose house he was a visitor, happened to express a wish that he had three hundred pounds to pay off a debt. The next morning Mr. Marsden came down and presented him with the money, taking no acknowledgment. The circumstance would have remained unknown had not the obliged person, after Mr. Marsden’s decease, honourably sent an acknowledgment to his executors.”

Samuel Marsden (1764-1838) Anglican Missionary to New Zealand in Memoirs of the Life and Labors of the Rev. Samuel Marsden ed. by John Buxton Marsden (London: The Religious Tract Society, 1866) 290.

“They [Ananias and Sapphira] brought the apostles only a portion of the sale of their property, while pretending to bring it all. They wanted the credit for generosity without the inconvenience.” (cf. Acts 5:1-11)

John R. W. Stott (1921-2011) in Through the Bible, Through the Year (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2006) 318.

“If we have really taken the message [of Christianity] in, we shall live lives of selfless generosity, always asking how the gifts given us – material or imaginative or spiritual or whatever – can be shared in a way that brings other people more fully alive.” (John 10:10)

Archbishop Rowan Williams in “Christianity” 2012 post at
http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/pages/christianity.html