Contentment: A Puritan Prayer

Heavenly Father, if I should suffer need, and go unclothed, and be in poverty, make my heart prize Thy love, know it, be constrained by it, though I be denied all blessings. It is Thy mercy to afflict and try me with wants, for by these trials I see my sins, and desire severance from them. Let me willingly accept misery, sorrows, temptations, if I can thereby feel sin as the greatest evil, and be delivered from it with gratitude to Thee, acknowledging this as the highest testimony of Thy love.

When thy Son, Jesus, came into my soul instead of sin He became more dear to me than sin had formerly been; His kindly rule replaced sin’s tyranny. Teach me to believe that if ever I would have any sin subdued I must not only labour to overcome it, but must invite Christ to abide in the place of it, and He must become to me more than vile lust had been; that His sweetness, power, life may be there. Thus I must seek a grace from Him contrary to sin, but must not claim it apart from Himself.

When I am afraid of evils to come, comfort me by showing me that in myself I am a dying, condemned wretch, but in Christ I am reconciled and live; that in myself I find insufficiency and no rest, but in Christ there is satisfaction and peace; that in myself I am feeble and unable to do good, but in Christ I have ability to do all things. Though now I have His graces in part, I shall shortly have them perfectly in that state where Thou wilt show Thyself fully reconciled, and alone sufficient, efficient, loving me completely, with sin abolished. O Lord, hasten that day.

(Taken from The Valley of Vision–Puritan Prayers and Devotion Quotes)

Righteousness Exalts a Nation

Proverbs 14:34 says, “Righteousness exalts a nation but sin is a disgrace to any people.”  The Word of God teaches that the crown of authority for any nation is when they covet righteousness.  However, the shame of a nation is when they embrace and promote sin.  With the first a nation has the blessings of God but with the second they live with the consequences of rebellion and sin.

Righteousness and the Gospel

We cannot forget the fact that true righteousness is only discovered in the gospel of Jesus Christ.  The gospel is the good news that Jesus bore the sinner’s punishment.  2 Corinthians 5:21 says, “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.”

Gospel-Foundation of the United States

Our great nation was established by men and women who desired to embrace the gospel and live that gospel.  Over the centuries the gospel has run fast and swift to every part of this nation and served as the foundation stone for America’s greatness.

In his first general order to his troops, General George Washington called on: “Every officer and man…to live and act, as becomes a Christian soldier defending the dearest rights and liberties of his country.”

After the Battle of the Cross, a soldier recounted to Chaplain Bennett his observation of General Stonewall Jackson.  “I saw something today which affected me more than anything I every saw or read on religion.  While the battle was raging and the bullets were flying, Jackson rode by, calm as if he were at home, but his head was raised toward heaven, and his lips were moving evidently in prayer.

Chaplain Jones writes of a captain in the Georgia Brigade who was converted at one of the prayer meetings.  The captain professed publicly, “Men, I have led you into many a battle.  Alas!  I have (also) led you into all manner of wickedness and vice.  I have enlisted under the banner of the cross, and mean, but God’s help, to prove a faithful soldier of Jesus…I call upon you, my brave boys, to follow me, a shall try to follow ‘The Captain of our salvation.”

Pray for the United States of America.  Pray that the gospel will penetrate our nation.