Prayer for a New (School) Year

Today is the first day of school at TCS, this gem, from the Valley of Vision, seemed appropriate.

O Lord

Length of days does not profit me

Except the days are passed in thy presence,

In thy service, to thy glory.

Give me a grace that precedes, follows, guides,

sustains, sanctifies, aids every hour

that I may not be a moment apart from thee,

but may rely on thy Spirit

to supply every thought,

speak in every word,

direct every step,

prosper every work,

build up every mote of faith,

and give me a desire

to show forth thy praise;

testify thy love

Advance thy kingdom.

I launch my bark on the unknown waters of this year,

with thee, O Father, as my harbour,

thee, O Son, as my helm,

thee, O Holy Spirit, filling my sails.

Guide me to heaven with my loins girt,

my lamp burning,

my ear open to thy call,

my heart full of love,

my soul free.

Give me thy grace to sanctify me,

thy comforts to cheer,

thy wisdom to teach,

thy right hand to guide,

thy counsel to instruct,

thy law to judge,

thy presence to stabilize.

May thy fear be my awe

Thy triumphs my joy

Amen

Praying with the Puritans

Bill Bryson described Puritanism as the fear that someone somewhere was having a good time. Sadly, Bryson speaks for a lot of Christians when he writes that. Jared C. Wilson describes that sort of view of the Puritans as 'theologically and historically tone deaf.' As much as i enjoy Bill Bryson, i have to agree with Jared C. Wilson.

I love the Puritans. From John 'is this a sentence or a paragraph,' Owen, to Jonathan 'come and see the view from up here,' Edwards, i never fail to enjoy the time i spend with these men. The Puritans, at their best were true evangelical, experiential Christians.

Comparing their prayer life to mine is like comparing to sun to the embers in a long forgotten fireplace, but for the last three months, i've enjoyed the privilege of praying alongside these great great men. I've been using Joe Thorn's Valley of Vision reading plan.

I must've bought the Valley of Vision years ago, i think even before i moved to the States, but it was always a bit of a mystery, always a bit overwhelming and even inaccessible. I'd prayed some of the daily prayers, the ministers prayers, and the repentance prayers fairly regularly, but i knew i was missing out. This reading plan has been life to me throughout the day this summer.

The plan has you reading three prayers a day, for five days a week, although about half way through i started reading the last two prayers from Friday on Saturday and Sunday. These prayers take you to places you'd heard of, and dreamed about, but never made it to. To penitential depths and joy filled heights, to seeing the horror of sin through the eyes of men who really got it, to seeing the joys of Christ through the hearts of men who knew Him.

Of course there are dangers to reading someone else's prayers, it can become formal and dry. So don't let it. Lay down the wood, and as for the Holy Spirit to set fire to it. I knew when i was praying, because it would take me nearly twenty minutes to cover maybe two minutes of reading.

Using the prayers at the start of the day was great, and warmed my heart up for the Word, but it was the prayers in the middle and at the end of the day that i appreciated the most. To make time to pray, and to be guided in these prayers was so valuable and so helpful. It's scary how easy it is, even when your desk is eleven paces from a church auditorium, to try and work in your own strength. The Valley of Vision was a lovely, life giving, corrective throughout the day.

It's made my prayer life deeper and richer, and i commend it to you without reservation.

You can buy the Valley of Vision here
And download the plan here.

So Take and Read

In a world of created changeable things, Christ and his Word alone remain unshaken.

O to forsake all creatures, to rest as a stone on him the foundation, to abide in him, be borne up by him!

For all my mercies come through Christ, who has designed, purchased, promised, effected them.

How sweet it is to be near him, the Lamb, filed with holy affections!

When I sin against thee I cross thy will, love, life, and have no comforter, no creature, to go to.

My sin is not so much this or that particular evil, but my continual separation, disunion, distance from thee, and having a loose spirit towards thee.

But thou hast given me a present, Jesus thy Son, as Mediator between thyself and my soul, as middle-man who in a pit holds both him below and him above, for only he can span the chasm breached by sin, and satisfy divine justice.

May I always lay hold upon this Mediator, as a realized object of faith, and alone worthy by his love to bridge the gulf.

Let me know that he is dear to me by his Word; I am one with him by the Word on his part, and by faith on mine;

If I oppose the Word I oppose my Lord when he is most near;

If I receive the Word I recieve my Lord wherein he is nigh.

O thou who hast the herats of all men in thine hand, form my heart according to the Word, according to the image of thy Son,

So shall Christ the Word, and his Word be my strength and comfort.”

Christ The Word, from Valley of Vision, Pp30-31

Before I Preach

My Master God,

I am desired to preach today,

but go weak and needy to my task;

yet i long that people by edified by divine truth,

that an honest testimony might be borne for thee.

Give me assistance in preaching and prayer,

with heart uplifted for grace and unction.

Present to my view things pertinent to my subject,

with fullness of matter and clarity of thought,

proper expressions, fluency, fervency,

a feeling sense of the things i preach,

and grace to apply them to mens consciences.

Keep me conscious all the while of my defects,

and let me not gloat in pride over my performance.

Help me to offer a testimony for thyself,

and to leave sinners inexcusable in neglecting thy mercy.

Give me freedom to open the sorrows of thy people,

and to set before them comforting considerations.

Attend with power the truth preached,

and awaken the attention of my audience.

May thy people be refreshed, melted, convicted and comforted,

and help me to use the strongest arguments drawn from Christ's incarnation and suffering,

that men might be made holy.

I myself need they support, comfort, strength and holiness,

that i might be a pure channel of thy grace and do something useful for thee.

Give me then refreshment among thy people,

and help me not to treat an excellent matter in a defective way,

or bear a broken testimony to so worthy a Redeemer,

or be harsh in treating Christ's death, it's design or it's end,

from a lack of warmth or feverency.

And keep me in tune with thee as i do this work.

A Minister's Preaching, Valley of Vision Pp348-349

Prayer for a Tuesday

Tuesday is an odd day isn't it? Not Monday, so there's no free pass to be grumpy, not Wednesday, so you don't feel like you're really making it to the weekend just yet. Tuesday is just sort of there, waiting to be got through.

I'm a fan of reading plans, and yesterday i started Joe Thorn's plan to read through the Valley of Vision in three months. I've had a copy of this book of Puritan prayers for a few years, but have hardly scratched the surface. I'm looking forward to doing just that in the coming weeks.

This morning's prayer was 'The Deeps' and what follows is the second half of that prayer.

Plough deep in me, great Lord, heavenly Husbandman,

that my being may be a tilled field,

the roots of grace spreading far and wide

until thou alone art seen in me

thy beauty golden like the summer harvest,

thy fruitfulness as Autumn plenty.

I have no master but thee,

no law but thy will,

no delight but thyself,

no wealth but that thou givest,

no good but that thou blessest,

I am nothing but that thou maketh me,

I have nothing but that i receive from thee

I can be nothing but that grace adorns me.

Quarry me deep, dear Lord,

and then fill me to overflowing,

with living water.

Live on Nothing but Mercy (Jeremiah Burroughs)

The following is an excerpt from 'Of Lovers and Whores,' a selection of Jeremiah Burroughs' sermons on Hosea, compiled and published by my friend Dave Bish. He has two other books of heart warming Puritan sermons published, which i highly recommend to you. Find them here.

Let us learn to wonder at these riches of mercy in Christ and exercise much faith about them. Certainly we would thrive in godliness much more if we exercised our faith in the bowels [heart] of God in Christ.

Fruit like apricots and May cherries that grow up by a wall and enjoy the warm beams of the sun are sooner ripe and have more sweetness than those which grow in shady places.Grass shaded by the trees in orchards are sour. So the fruit which Christians bring forth under discouragements and despairing thoughts is very sour. Some things they do because conscience compels them to duty, but it is sour fruit. Though it is better to do what conscience requires than not, yet merely to follow conscience is sour grass.

When a Christian can by faith set himself before the sunshine of these mercies of God in Christ and continually live in the midst continually in the beams of that grace he grows ripe sooner and the fruit is sweeter.

You can easily know whether the Sun of righteousness shines on you. Does your fruit grow ripe? Is it sweet fruit? Those who talk of mercy and of Christ and have His name in their mouths but bring forth sour and crabbed fruit are not in the Sun; they are blind and cannot discern it, and are but a light of their own fancy in a heart of their own making.

In Ephesians 3:18-19 the apostle prays that the Ephesians 'may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth ' of the riches of God in Christ. The philosophers tell us of only three dimensions, but there are four.

What fruit is this, 'to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge, that you might be filled with all the fullness of God.' Here is the effect of it, when we know the breadth and length and depth and height of God's love, and have that knowledge by the Spirit of God, that surpasses mental knowledge, then we are filled with the fullness of God.

Here now is a glorious Christian, a Christian filled with the fullness of God. Do you want this to be so of you? Learn to exercise faith much about the infinite riches of mercy of God in Christ.  f. This will fill you with the fullness of God. You complain of barrenness and emptiness in your hearts and lives, it is because you give little heed to this.

God betroths Himself to the church in mercies, in bowels. let us learn when we are in any trouble to plead with God for bowels of mercy. Isaiah 63:15, 'look down from Heaven, and behold from the habitiation of your holiness and you glory, where is your zeal and your strength, the sound of your bowels, and your mercy towards me? Are they restrained?' Lord, have you not said you will betroth your church to yourself in bowels? Where is the sounding of your heart? Lord, let us have your heart, from which you have betrothed us through Christ.

Oh what confusion there will be one day for those who have missed these mercies of God, in which the Lord has betrothed Himself to the Church. Will you content yourself with crumbs, with the fruits of His general bounty and patience, when you hear of the glorious mercies in Jesus Christ? These things should raise our hearts, so that we protest as Luther did; 'I protest that God shall not put me off with the things of the world, with my portion here. Oh no the Lord has shown me greater riches, and though i am unworthy of any, yet, as i know His mercy is free, why should i not have my portion in these glorious things?

Come in then, come in, oh sinful soul. Be in love with Jesus Christ and the ways of godliness. Know that all these mercies are tendered to your soul this day, to break your heart, even that hard heart of yours.And they are free for you as any. There is nothing more pleasing to God than for you to be taken with the glory of His riches in mercy. You cannot perform any duty acceptable to God as this, to have your heart broken on the consideration of his heart, to have your heart yearn again and come in and join with this infinite ocean of mercy. Breathe the element of mercy, live by nothing but mercy.

An Interview with Henry Scougal

Bill Bryson speaks for many when he defines Puritanism as 'the fear that someone, somewhere, might be enjoying themselves.' If the Puritans seem like creatures from a different planet, it's only because church culture has slipped so far from Biblical Christianity.

Lately i've been re-reading 'The Life of God in the Soul of Man' by Henry Scougal. The main thesis of the book is summed up in the title, that Christian life is a divine life, the very life of God, communion with God evidenced and outworked in our souls through good works. He was 27 when he wrote it (if not younger) which makes me feel like Caesar looking at Alexander's statue.

In the first chapter Scougal discusses what real Christianity is, what it looks like, and what it's not. he cautions us against simply judging our affections and actions against those of other men, as many have different temperaments, and many are drawn to the rewards of Heaven in a purely earthly way, without any of the inner change that the Gospel brings.

So what are the evidences of saving faith? 'The root of divine life is faith, it's chief branches are love to God, charity to man, purity and humility. The following comes from pages 55 and 56 of his book.

What is faith?

It is nothing else than a sense or feeling persuasion of spiritual things. It has a peculiar relation to the declarations of God's mercy, and reconcilableness with sinners through a mediator, and therefore, receiving it's denomination through it's principle object is ordinarily termed, faith in Jesus Christ.

What is love of God?

The love of God is the delightful and affectionate sense of the divine perfections which makes the soul resign and sacrifice itself wholly unto Him desiring above all things to please Him, and delighting in nothing so much as in fellowship and communion with Him... It grounds itself on His infinite goodness manifested in all His works of creation and providence.

What is charity to man?

A soul thus possessed with such divine love must need be enlarged to all mankind...because of the relation they have to God, and His image stamped upon them. All the parts of justice, all the duty we owe our neighbour are...comprehended for he who doth truly love the world will be nearly concerned with the welfare of every one of them. He will resent any evil that befalls others, as if it happened to himself.

What is purity?

A abstractedness from the body and mastery over inferior appetites. A temper and disposition of the mind as make a man despise and abstain from all pleasures and delights...which are sinful in themselves or tend to extinguish or lessen our relish of the more divine pleasures. A resoluteness to undergo any hardships he may meet in the performance of his duty so that not only chastity and temperance but also Christian courage and magnanimity may come under this head. 

What is humility?

Humility imports a deep sense of our own meanness with a hearty and affectionate acknowledgement of all we are to the divine bounty. This is always accompanied by submission to the will of God and great deadness towards the glory of the world and the applause of men.

Where else do we see the such faith, love, charity, humility and purity than in Jesus? And how else can we be faithful, loving, humble and pure than through a relationship with Him?