Just a Prayer
Josh September 11th, 2007
O Gracious and Holy Lord, Thou art the Creator of all things and in Thee do all things consist. Thy holiness has set Thee apart and Thou alone art worthy to be worshipped and adored. Blessed be Thy Name, O King, for with Thy right arm Thou dost reign supreme. As the sovereign and transcendent God, Thou knowest all things. Thou dost know the failures of Thy servant - my wretched heart’s wanderings, my straying mind’s departures from all that is holy. Though Thou dost know these things already, I do readily confess and repent thereof these slights against Thy holy law and plead that Thou, my longsuffering God, would forgive Thy broken servant. The guilt of my sin does haunt and plague me so, but not nearly enough! May Thy Holy Spirit visit with me with a constant sense of my sin — not that I should be brought to despair, but so that my great need for Thy sanctification would linger ever before me. For it is Thy kindness which leads me to repentance and repent I do — begging Thy mercies which are new every morning. I pray thus according to Thy promise to save Thy servant to the uttermost. To Thee alone I singularly and wholeheartedly give my utmost devotion. Forgive Thy servant then, Lord, and make me more like Thy Son — for it is in His Name and by His merit I lay these requests before Thee. May it be so, Lord. Amen.
- General , Pilgrim's Progress , Prayer
- Comments(8)
Why people use English of a few hundred years ago I will never know.
Also, that prayer reminds me of a man still living in fear and defeat and not of a true Christian or at least one who is not aware of what God has done in Christ for us.
Josh, you need to live in the Holy Spirit a bit more and less under the Law. Otherwise you will miss the whole point of the Gospel of Grace.
Also try put the Apostle Paul before the reformers and maybe we can get on with preaching the Gospel for the Elect of God.
Hi, (name removed by admin). Just a brief response to your, umm, strange reply to my prayer.
First, I suppose I should have closed this entry to comments as it was a prayer to God, and not my reader(s).
Secondly, I’ll address your particulars:
Well, I’m quite fond of the old and beautiful prose, myself. The Thees and the Thous are very appealing to my ears. You must know that my prayer was not intended to be merely an affectionate and heartfelt prayer. But I also wanted to write it because, well, I like to write. So there’s a bit of Art in this post as well.
Wow, (name removed by admin). That statement is loaded with so many wrong assumptions, I could do a blog series on it to last for a year. Nonetheless, for brevity’s sake I will condense (and I’ll try not to use any English vocabulary that will be difficult to discern).
First, I assure Thee, ol’ chap, that I liveth not in fear, nor do I court despair in a spirit of defeat. Rather, Good Sir, I am emboldened by the words of Thy aforementioned Apostle when he sayeth, “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear” (II Timothy I.VII) and believeth with him, when he doth proclaim, “we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” (Romans VIII.XXXVII)
Secondly, My Good Man, How wouldst Thou define “a true Christian?” and what in my prayer dost make Thee presume me among the Heathen? I am certainly, Dear Fellow, aware of what our Lord and Christ hath done for us. Thou mayest peruse my blog and find in not a few articles my proclamation of what victory Christ hath wrought on behalf of His elect, for they certainly couldst not secured it for themselves.
You continue on:
How is it, (name removed by admin), that you know my life and in what state I am living? How can you possibly know that I’m not “liv[ing] in the Holy Spirit?” I mean, really? Also, could you kindly cite from any of my writings, whether it be explicit or implicit, wherein I relay that I understand myself as being under the Law? I will certainly retract such commentary if indeed the case can be made that I am proclaiming to be one under the Law.
On “missing the point of the Gospel of Grace,” I’m not sure what you mean. I think you may actually be missing the point of the perfection of God’s Law…to show man his need of the Gospel of Grace.
In fact, I’ve written a particular article on the Gospel of Grace. (name removed by admin), let me ask, how can one appreciate the Gospel of Grace if they can’t see their need of it (which comes via God’s perfect Law)? You see, the Law is not bad. We are. The Law is good. The Law is perfect, “converting the Soul,” as the Psalmist says. Below, I’ve linked to multiple articles (not all) which have Grace saturating and dominating them.
By Choice
ATTN: Unbelievers
God is Good
Justification
God is Faithful
Thanksgiving
Thankful For Christ’s Church
A Second Reformation
This Lord’s Day
And just for some further commentary on the Law:But That’s Old Testament.
Then comes the most insulting of all:
Okay, you have to back up this assertion. I guarantee you I’ve alluded more to Paul and Jesus and the rest of Scripture more than I’ve alluded to the Reformers. Have you even read my blog?
Sorry if I offended you so easily Josh.
You can defend as much as you wish but I would not change anything that I wrote, except to correct any spelling errors.
The very fact that you use the words ‘insulting’ speaks volumes to me.
I do not see the Grace of the Lord Jesus Christ in your blog!
Typical of many so called Reformed Christians.
So many books and words and yet lacking Christian grace.
Maybe only Hyper Calvinist are worse.
Cultivate love Josh and remember that mercy triumphs of judgement.
(name removed by admin) wrote:
No problems, (name removed by admin). I regret that you think my response was one of defensiveness. Indeed it was not, but merely a request for you to prove your assertion in light of the whole of my writings.
You continue:
Since you will not concede your point or change anything you’ve posted, will you at least prove your accusations about my eternal state by citing things I’ve written to indicate such?
How can it not be an insult, (name removed by admin), when you accused me of alluding more to the Reformers than to Scripture itself? It only shows you’ve failed, yet again, to read anything of substance on my blog. My entries are replete with much more Scripture than the writings of the Reformers. So, yes, it is insulting. Although, it is you who appears foolish (No offense).
I think one reason you do not “see” the Grace of the Lord Jesus in my blog is because you haven’t read it.
What is?
Your ramblings are incoherent.
Huh? How does this relate, (name removed by admin)?
Certainly, nothing I wrote was intended to be unloving or lacking in grace. I’m sorry if my response seemed harsh, and hope that you can also point that out as well so that I can correct it.
To the reader: For a continuation of this discussion go here and read how the Law is Not a Boogey Man.
Hi (name removed by admin),
I was re-reading the post and the comments here to make sure I didn’t misunderstand, but I was a bit confused about a few things. So I thought I would write to ask.
You wrote:
I’ve re-read the prayer a few times just to make sure I didn’t misunderstand it. I know you’re saying that it reminds you of someone else. But, since you didn’t further qualify your statements and said otherwise, the implication of it seems to be that after reading Josh’s penitent prayer of confession, you felt it comes from a man who 1) is not a true Christian or 2) is unaware of what God has done for Christians. Even then, it seems a bit presumptious for you to say that Josh is relying more upon the law than the Holy Spirit, since you’re basing it off of a short blog entry (without a greater context) in addition to having no knowledge of how he practically lives out his life on a day-to-day basis.
I wonder sincerely as to what led you to believe that Josh is not living or relying upon the Holy Spirit but rather relying more upon the law? Josh acknowledges in his prayer that it is Christ’s Name and Christ’s merits by which he comes before the throne of grace and prays:
He then writes that it is upon God’s kindness and mercies that He relies and clings himself to daily:
Joshua was simply expressing his desire to live a life that is pleasing before God, and was praying for his progress in sanctification. I’m confident you would agree that those who are saved would desire to obey God and His commands, not out of legalism nor for the mere sake of living under the law, but out of love for our Lord Jesus Christ. Praise God for His unmerited grace. Praise God that Christ merited for the believers a perfect righteousness and imputes to them the perfect sinless works that we have failed to live ourselves. Indeed we are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, thus to the glory of God alone, according to the Scripture alone. And this, apart from works of the law. But as Samuel Bolton aptly puts it:
You wrote:
That’s great that you see the importance of love and mercy. That’s why I was a bit perplexed to read that your comments, from your first (non-relevant) sentence “Why people use English of a few hundred years ago I will never know” to the implication that Josh is relying more upon the law than the Holy spirit, comes across as rather judgmental. Even your first unnecessary sentence about Josh’s usage of old English provides a greater context of the spirit in which you wrote the whole comment. The overall tone of your post was, according to your own word usage, “lacking Christian Grace.”
In closing, I find it odd that, instead of choosing a doctrinal or biblical article from Josh’s pen, you chose one of his prayers as a medium for your comments. Even then, your response was not one of charitable inquiry, but of presumptive accusation. One can only think that you failed to understand or appreciate his prayer in the greater context of all else he’s written here on the blog.
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