Over the years I have enjoyed Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening Devotions. I’d highly recommend your getting your own copy. It is full of Christ exalting doctrine, well-phrased truth, and good sage common sense. I don’t read it as consistently now as when I first received my own copy in the mid-seventies, but I do have it as part of my Logos Bible software, on my phone, and in book form on my bedside table. As I was heading to bed the other night, I simply cracked the book, opened to the following selection and I was mesmerized. And since that doesn’t readily happen, I did what anyone would do, I scoured this entry with profit, then read it again the next morning, again, and again. Something in it caught my heart’s eye. Perhaps it will do likewise for you . . .
“Continue in prayer.” Colossians 4:2
It is interesting to remark how large a portion of Sacred Writ is occupied with the subject of prayer, either in furnishing examples, enforcing precepts, or pronouncing promises.
We scarcely open the Bible before we read, “Then began men to call upon the name of the Lord;” and just as we are about to close the volume, the “Amen” of an earnest supplication meets our ear.
Instances are plentiful. Here we find a wrestling Jacob—there a Daniel who prayed three times a day—and a David who with all his heart called upon his God. On the mountain we see Elias; in the dungeon Paul and Silas. We have multitudes of commands, and myriads of promises.
What does this teach us, but the sacred importance and necessity of prayer? We may be certain that whatever God has made prominent in his Word, he intended to be conspicuous in our lives.
If he has said much about prayer, it is because he knows we have much need of it. So deep are our necessities, that until we are in heaven we must not cease to pray. Dost thou want nothing? Then, I fear thou dost not know thy poverty. Hast thou no mercy to ask of God? Then, may the Lord’s mercy show thee thy misery!
A prayerless soul is a Christless soul. Prayer is the lisping of the believing infant, the shout of the fighting believer, the requiem of the dying saint falling asleep in Jesus. It is the breath, the watchword, the comfort, the strength, the honour of a Christian.
If thou be a child of God, thou wilt seek thy Father’s face, and live in thy Father’s love.
Pray that . . . thou mayst be holy, humble, zealous, and patient; have closer communion with Christ, and enter oftener into the banqueting-house of his love. Pray that thou mayst be an example and a blessing unto others, and that thou mayst live more to the glory of thy Master.
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