A New Approach

The skinny:

First half of semester – done

Spring break – lovely

me – alive

life – good

The fat:

Tonight I picked up a volume of Charles Spurgeon expecting get a useful read, and instead had my brain stretched out again. Gotta watch that with Spurgeon. Smart fellow.

The passage he expounded was from Paul (II Cor 1:11-12), and just when you thought it was another sermon on prayer, Spurgeon caught the apostle approaching God in a special and deliberate way, using what he calls the Rule of Three: “He [Paul] argues from the past to the present and from the present to things yet to come.”

How simple and yet how encouraging! If I used this approach in my own prayers to God wouldn’t it make them more confidant and hopeful? If my faith is too low to ask for tonight’s forgiveness, need I look any further than this morning’s mercies? Too many times I forget the word that commands “Pour out your heart like water before the presence of the Lord” (Lam 2:19). I let my prayers get bogged down. Tonight, with the encouragement from Spurgeon, I want to call to mide past deliverances, with the hope, even confidence, that the Lord will rescue me now and in the future.

“Whatever our circumstances are, however perplexing our pathway may be, and however dark our horizon, if we argue by the rule of He has, He does, He will, our comfort can never be destroyed. Courage, then, you who are afflicted. If you had a changeable God to deal with, your souls might be full of bitterness; but because He is unchanging, every repeated manifestation of His grace should make it easier for you to rest in Him. Every renew experience of His faithfulness should confirm your confidence in His grace. May the most blessed Spirit teach you to grow in holy confidence in our ever faithful Lord.”

Amen to that.