PrayingWithMyFingers

Dear God,

The function of self denial is to break up of my hardness of heart.  How do I become more of a giver and less of a taker?  How?  Surrender.  Here I am again trying to decide how I do this or I do that.  I can’t seem to remember that I cannot do the work of my own salvation.  I cannot even effectively surrender to allowing You, God to do what only You, God can do!  What You, God require of my soul is surrender.

I must become willing to take my “medicine.”  Sitting in silence is the only way I can listen and hear Your still, small voice…still and small but the Voice that contains all the power in the world and beyond.

Coming to the end of self seems like an impossible task to me.  I cannot do it.  Yet, I am the only one who can surrender in order for You, God to do it.

The following Puritan prayer is entitled “Belonging to Jesus.” It is a prayer of complete submission to Your Lordship in all circumstances. This is my prayer today and every day:

“O Heavenly Father, Teach me to see that if Christ has pacified thee and satisfied divine justice he can also deliver me from my sins; that Christ does not desire me, now justified, to live in self-confidence in my own strength, but gives me the law of the Spirit of life to enable me to obey thee; that the Spirit and his power are mine by resting on Christ’s death; that the Spirit of Life within answers to the law without; that if I sin not I should thank thee for it; that if I sin I should be humbled daily under it; that I should mourn for sin more than others do, for when I see I shall die because of sin, that makes me mourn; when I see how sin strikes at thee, that makes me mourn; when I see that sin caused Christ’s death, that makes me mourn; that sanctification is the evidence of reconciliation, proving that faith has truly apprehended Christ; Thou has taught me that faith is nothing else than receiving thy kindness; that it is an adherence to Christ, a resting on him, love clinging to him as a branch to a tree, to seek life and vigour from him. I thank thee for showing me the vast difference between knowing things by reason, and knowing them by the spirit of faith. By reason I see a thing is so; by faith I know it as it is. I have seen thee by reason and have not been amazed, I have seen thee as thou art in thy Son and have been ravished to behold thee. I bless thee that I am thine in my Saviour Jesus.”