Tag: Mercy

Grace In Time Of Need

~ A Prayer Life ~ 1 Comment

“Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need”

~ Hebrews 4:16

As a result of the supremacy of Christ in His priesthood, and His attending mediatorial office of interceding on behalf of His people, we can come boldly (that is with confidence, with assurance, with conviction and by faith in the work of Christ) to the God’s throne of grace. I like to think we do this in our prayers. As we come before God in prayer, we can confidently approach Him on the veracity of His own character, and we can seek Him out, as our verse says, in time of need. It is by faith in Christ and with God that we may find and obtain mercy and grace. What wonderful comfort that is for those who have Christ as their Great High Priest.

~ apl

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The Brink of The Pit

~ A Prayer Life ~ 1 Comment

“The best course to prevent falling into the pit is to keep at the greatest distance; he that will be so bold as to attempt to dance upon the brink of the pit, may find by woeful experience that it is a righteous thing with God that he should fall into the pit.”

~ Thomas Brooks

Prayer Life Pause: Heavenly Father, guide me away from the edge of sin to safer and greener pastures close to you. Keep me from stumbling and falling by Thy sweet mercy and strong grace. In Jesus’ name, amen.

All The Fullness of God

~ A Prayer Life ~ 2 Comments

“For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height, to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”

~ Ephesians 3:14-21

Prayer Life Pause: Dear Lord, I bend the knee of my heart before You in honor of Your glory, grace and mercy. May I continue to walk in the abundance of Your love and the strength of Your power each and every day. In Jesus’ name, amen.

God Is Love

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“God is love” ~ 1 John 4:8

God will always be most holy, most just, all knowing, all powerful, all sovereign, infinite, immutable, and eternal but if God is not love – how do any of those other glorious attributes relate to us? Without God’s love, how would fallen man come to experience any of His other truly majestic attributes? It is the attribute of love that brings God down to His creature. It is His love that moves Him to deal with us through the work of redemption, not only according to His justice, wrath and judgment, but also with forgiveness, mercy and grace.

In 1 John 4:8 we read God is love. Love is not so much an attribute of God as it is His very essence.  It is not so much a moral perfection of His being as it is His being itself. He would not be God were He not love. God has loved His people from everlasting, and therefore nothing about the creature can be the cause of what is found in God from eternity. He loves from Himself:  “according to His own purpose” (cf. 2 Tim. 1:9) and it was His purpose to reconcile sinful people to Himself through the atoning death of His Son.

It is one thing to talk about God’s love in an academic or intellectual manner, but I think it is also vitally important to know God’s love experientially. I know we don’t want to base our faith on our feelings, but at the same time, we don’t want to neglect such a great blessing as actually experiencing God’s love in our life. Remember, Jesus wept. It’s ok to be moved mentally emotionally and spiritually by the thought of God’s precious, sovereign gracious and everlasting love.

~ apl

I Pray, Lord

~ A Prayer Life ~ 3 Comments

“I pray, Lord God of heaven, O great and awesome God, You who keep Your covenant and mercy with those who love You and observe Your commandments, please let Your ear be attentive and Your eyes open, that You may hear the prayer of Your servant which I pray before You now, day and night, for the children of Israel Your servants, and confess the sins of the children of Israel which we have sinned against You. Both my father’s house and I have sinned. We have acted very corruptly against You, and have not kept the commandments, the statutes, nor the ordinances which You commanded Your servant Moses. Remember, I pray, the word that You commanded Your servant Moses, saying, ‘If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations;  but if you return to Me, and keep My commandments and do them, though some of you were cast out to the farthest part of the heavens, yet I will gather them from there, and bring them to the place which I have chosen as a dwelling for My name.’  Now these are Your servants and Your people, whom You have redeemed by Your great power, and by Your strong hand. O Lord, I pray, please let Your ear be attentive to the prayer of Your servant, and to the prayer of Your servants who desire to fear Your name; and let Your servant prosper this day, I pray, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man.” 

~ Nehemiah 1:5-11

In this magnificent example of a deeply faithful and sincerely earnest prayer, the Old Testament prophet, Nehemiah, grants God’s people for all time a wonderful model prayer that we can take to heart and meditate upon as we cultivate our own personal prayer life.

Nehemiah’s prayer begins as all diligent prayers should, by acknowledging God for who He truly is. Notice how Nehemiah confesses the Lord God of heaven is a “great and awesome God”. Likewise he stresses in his petition how the Lord is gracious and faithful, remembering His covenant and the attending blessings of “mercy” and “love” that are contained therein. Only after such a humble and reverent introduction does the servant of the Lord request the attention of His God towards his prayer.

Nehemiah’s prayer continues in a manner I recommend all prayers do. Look at the words he uses to pray to God – Nehemiah prays God’s own words back to Him:

Remember, I pray, the word that You commanded Your servant Moses, saying, ‘If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations;  but if you return to Me, and keep My commandments and do them, though some of you were cast out to the farthest part of the heavens, yet I will gather them from there, and bring them to the place which I have chosen as a dwelling for My name.’ 

What better way to garner our Lord’s attention and to move Him to respond to our prayers than to recite back to Him His own infallible inerrant words! When we sweetly mingle together the power of God’s own Word with the petitions of a solemn and devoted prayer, we have what I believe, like in the case of Nehemiah, a beautiful and acceptable prayer.

Now please notice with me, beloved, not only does Nehemiah recite God’s own words back to Him, but he also recounts God’s own actions. Towards the end of this astonishing prayer we read:

Now these are Your servants and Your people, whom You have redeemed by Your great power, and by Your strong hand. O Lord, I pray, please let Your ear be attentive to the prayer of Your servant, and to the prayer of Your servants who desire to fear Your name; and let Your servant prosper this day, I pray, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man.

Nehemiah “reminds” God of His merciful redeeming acts through His “great power” and by His “strong hand”. It should be clear the Lord loves to be gracious, to redeem and to restore. He loves when we can recall in our own hearts and minds His past goodness and use this truth as our motivation to approach Him in prayers for future blessings.

As we seek to come before our Lord in times and seasons of prayer, let us bear these things in mind. 1. The Lord should be acknowledged for the great and awesome God He truly is. 2. His own words make for a strong and powerful petition as we come to Him. 3. His own actions stand as a wonderful testimony to God’s faithfulness and goodness to His people. May we bear this in heart, mind and spirit as we say; “I pray, Lord”.

Of Divine Providence

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“God the good Creator of all things, in his infinite power and wisdom doth uphold, direct, dispose, and govern all creatures and things, from the greatest even to the least, by his most wise and holy providence, to the end for the which they were created, according unto his infallible foreknowledge, and the free and immutable counsel of his own will; to the praise of the glory of his wisdom, power, justice, infinite goodness, and mercy.”

~ London Baptist Confession of Faith 1689 V.I

The Lord our God

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The Lord our God is but one only living and true God; whose subsistence is in and of himself, infinite in being and perfection; whose essence cannot be comprehended by any but himself; a most pure spirit, invisible, without body, parts, or passions, who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; who is immutable, immense, eternal, incomprehensible, almighty, every way infinite, most holy, most wise, most free, most absolute; working all things according to the counsel of his own immutable and most righteous will for his own glory; most loving, gracious, merciful, long-suffering, abundant in goodness and truth, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin; the rewarder of them that diligently seek him, and withal most just and terrible in his judgments, hating all sin, and who will by no means clear the guilty.

~ The London Baptist Confession of Faith II.I

All This Was Done

~ A Prayer Life ~ 1 Comment

“But all this was done that the Scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled.”

~ Matthew 26:56 (NKJV)

The birth, life, death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ was not some random cosmic accident. Mere chance had no hand in it. The redemption Christ brought to this world was the result of a glorious and eternal plan of salvation for a lost and dying world. Since the first man fell from righteousness and succumbed to the temptation of sin, mankind has desperately needed a Redeemer. Jesus is that Redeemer. All that was accomplished from His miraculous birth, through His sinless life, sacrificial death and justifying resurrection, was done that God’s Word, what the Lord had promised through the prophets of old, would lovingly, mercifully and gracious be fulfilled. May we embrace Christ and what He has done for us.

Amen

The Church Defined

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“The Church of Christ is the multitude of all those who believe in Christ for the remission of sins, and who are thankful for that mercy and who love the law of God purely, and who hate the sin in this world and long for the life to come.”

~ William Tyndale (1494-1536)

Infinite Mercy

~ A Prayer Life ~ 2 Comments

[God’s] mercy is infinite. Everything about it is infinite. It proceeds from an infinite Being, flows through the medium of an infinite sacrifice, surmounts obstacles that are infinite, and addresses itself to those that are infinitely unworthy and ill-deserving.

~ Gardiner Spring (1785-1872)