A Very Necessary Prayer

With newspapers and magazines, with radio and television, and with telephones and good mail service, we in one day can learn so much more than what in times past we learned over a much longer period of time.

But the big question is: How much are you learning about spiritual matters? This is very important, because spiritual truth will enable us to judge what is right and what is wrong in God's sight, and to know how to be pleasing in His sight.

We do go to church. We do read His Word every day. We attend meetings where God's Word is studied. We get a deeper insight into the truth of our salvation, into what is pleasing in His sight, and how great is His love and grace toward His people.

But another big question is: Can you sincerely pray with Paul what he wrote in Philippians 1:9 ? There he wrote: "And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment."

Is that your prayer? Do you want your love toward God to grow? Do you want to receive in your heart what you already have in your mind about Him and His grace?

The devil knows a lot about God and His Son, our Savior. His temptation of Adam and Eve reveals how great his knowledge was about what God taught man as being good and evil. But mere knowledge and judgment is not enough. Satan has that. But he does not have love for God. He does not love the truth we have learned; and he does not judge to be good and evil what God calls good and evil.

How important then, and very necessary it is, that every morning we pray that our love for God may abound yet more and more in our knowledge of Him and His Son, and in all our judgment as to what is good for us to do, and what is evil and must not be done.

Pray for forgiveness of your sins; but pray also for the growth of your love for God, and for its control over all your knowledge. Pray that it may control and decide what you will choose and what you will refuse.

Read: Philippians 1:1-11

Meditations on the Heidelberg Catechism

Through the Bible in One Year
Read today:
Isaiah 66:1-24 
Philippians 3:4-21 
Psalm 74:1-23 
Proverbs 24:15-16 
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Quote for Reflection:

Discipleship: 

“Take my yoke upon you…” (Matt. 11:29a) For many of today’s supposed Christians—perhaps the majority—it is the case that while there is much talk about Christ and even much furious activity, there is actually very little following of Christ Himself. And that means in some circles there is very little genuine Christianity. Many who fervently call Him ‘Lord, Lord’ are not Christians (Matt. 7:21)...There are several reasons that the situation I have described is common in today’s church. The first is a defective theology that has crept over us like a deadening fog. This theology separates faith from discipleship and grace from obedience. It teaches that Jesus can be received as one’s Savior without being received as one’s Lord…  When Jesus used this image, he was saying that to follow Him was to submit to Him.  It was to receive Him as Lord of one‘s life.

- James M. Boice