Category: Worship

Heart, Mind & Soul

~ A Prayer Life ~ 1 Comment

“[They] honor Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me” ~ Matt. 15:8a

The Christian faith is first and foremost a matter of the heart. If one thinks living for Christ is simply, or primarily, going through a set of religious rites and rituals, they have missed the point entirely. Sadly, we can convince ourselves otherwise. Many do practically, though maybe unintentionally, honor Jesus with their lips while their hearts are far from Him.

The Lord made this clear even under the Old Covenant with Israel. He desires our heart. Though true believers in the Lord Jesus should honor Him with their lips, it should be from a heart that is drawn near to Him. It isn’t either or, it’s both. May we not depend on our outward conformity as the basis for our experience with God, rather may we be inwardly convicted and surrender our whole hearts unto Him honoring the Lord heart, mind and soul.

Warning Against Growing Cold In Preaching

~ A Prayer Life ~ 1 Comment

“When I let my heart grow cold, my preaching is cold; and when it is confused, my preaching is confused; and I can often observe the effect of this in the best of my hearers: that when I have grown cold in preaching, they have grown cold too; and the next prayers which I have heard from them have been too much like my preaching.”

~ Richard Baxter, The Reformed Pastor

Refreshing The Congregation

~ A Prayer Life ~ 1 Comment

“We are the nurses of Christ’s little ones. If we keep from taking food ourselves, we will famish them; it will soon be visible in their leanness, and in the dull discharge of their several duties. If we let our love decline, we are not likely to raise theirs. If we abate our holy care and fear, it will appear in our preaching: if the matter does not show it, the manner will. If we feed on unwholesome food, whether errors or fruitless controversies, our hearers are likely to fare the worse for it. Whereas, if we would abound in faith, and love, and zeal, it would overflow to the refreshment of our congregations, and it would appear in the increase of those same graces in them!”

~ Richard Baxter, The Reformed Pastor

Preach To Yourselves

~ A Prayer Life ~ Leave a comment

“Do not content yourselves with being in a state of grace, but also be careful that your graces are kept in vigorous and lively exercise, and that you preach to yourselves the sermons which you study, and do so before you preach them to others. If you did this for your own sakes, it would not be lost labor; but I am speaking to you for the public’s sake, so that you would do it for the sake of the Church. When your minds are in a holy, heavenly frame, your people are likely to partake of its fruits. Your prayers, and praises, and doctrine will be sweet and heavenly to them. They will likely sense when you have been with God extensively: what is most on your heart, is likely to be most in their ears.”

~ Richard Baxter, The Reformed Puritan

See God In His Creatures

~ A Prayer Life ~ 2 Comments

“It must be well observed that God did not lay aside the relation of a Creator by becoming our Redeemer; but in some respect, the work of redemption is subordinate to that of creation, and the law of the Redeemer is subordinate to the law of the Creator. In the same way, the duties which we owed to God as Creator have not ceased, but the duties we owe to the Redeemer, as such, are subordinate to them. It is the work of Christ to bring us back to God, and to restore us to the perfection of holiness and obedience. And just as he is the way to the Father, so faith in him is the way to our former employment and enjoyment of God. I hope you perceive what I intend in all this: namely, that to see God in his creatures, and to love him, and to converse with him, was the employment of man in his upright estate. This has not ceased to be our duty. In fact, far from it: it is the work of Christ to bring us back to it by faith.”

~ Richard Baxter, The Reformed Pastor

Fire & Music

~ A Prayer Life ~ 1 Comment

“The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament shows His handiwork.”

~ Psalm 19:1

“By reading the Scriptures I am so renewed that all nature seems renewed around me and with me. The sky seems to be a pure, a cooler blue, the trees a deeper green. The whole world is charged with the glory of God and I feel fire and music under my feet.”

~ Thomas Merton

Simple Faith

~ A Prayer Life ~ 2 Comments 
                                                         Simple faith, desires to please;
                                                          Bows its head, bends its knees.
                                                     Longs for grace, to see God's face.
                                                 Sustains the weak, stops our stumble.
                                                 In the eyes of Christ, such faith is dear;
                                                     It's free to all, who will draw near.

~ apl

Whose Glory Is Dearer

~ A Prayer Life ~ Leave a comment

“Do all to the glory of God.”

~ 1 Cor. 10:31b

“What shall befall me in the pursuance of this work, I refer to the disposal of Almighty God, whose glory is dearer to me, not only than my liberty, but than my life.”

~ John Biddle