Jewels From James #1

Jewels From James # 1

Do You Indeed ACT As You Pray?

I need not prove to you that prayer, as a duty, is essential to Christian conduct; and, as a privilege, is equally indispensable to Christian enjoyment. All Christians give themselves to this devout exercise. Their petitions are copious, comprehensive, and seemingly earnest.

What solemn professions they make to God! What ardent desires they express! What numerous blessings they seek! What strong resolutions they form!

If we so pray - how ought we to live? What kind of people must we be - to live up to the standard of our prayers? And ought we not, in some measure at least, to reach this standard? Should there not be a harmony, a consistency, a proportion - between our practice and our prayers?

Do you indeed ACT as you pray? Do you understand the import, and feel the obligation of your own petitions? Do you rise from your knees where you have asked and knocked - to seek? Do you really want, wish for, and endeavor to obtain an answer to your prayers? Are you really intent upon doing, and being - what you ask for in prayer?

Our prayers are to act upon ourselves; they have, or ought to have, great power in the formation of character and the regulation of conduct.

It is plain, therefore, that much of prayer is mere words. We either do not understand, or do not consider, or do not mean - what we say. Do we go from praying - to acting, and to live for salvation, for heaven, for eternity?

"Spirituality of mind" is the subject of innumerable prayers from some who never take a step to promote it! But, on the contrary, who are doing all they  can to make themselves carnally minded! How many repeat that petition, "Lead us not into temptation," who, instead of most carefully keeping at the utmost possible distance from all inducements to sin, place themselves in the very path of sin!

How often do we pray to have the mind of Christ, and to imitate the example of Jesus. But where is the assiduous endeavor, the laboring effort, to copy this high model, in its self-denying condescension, its profound humility, its beautiful meekness, its indifference to worldly comforts, its forgiving mercy, its devotedness to God?

How often do we pray to be delivered from evil temptations and irascible feelings. And yet we indulge them on every slight provocation, and take no pains to subdue them!

It is unnecessary to multiply the illustrations of the inconsistency between our prayers and our practice.
_________________________

So Hideous and So Dreadful Is The Offspring!

How dreadful is the nature of sin! Sin is the parent of death. Death the first-born of sin. What must be the parent - when so hideous and so dreadful is the offspring! Who can have watched the harbingers of death - the groans, the pains, the dying strife - without being struck with the fearful nature of man's revolt from God?

Death in itself, and by itself - is horrid and revolting! To see all this inflicted upon a Christian, a child of God, an heir of glory; to see no way even to the kingdom of God, to the realms of immortality - but this dark valley of corruption, earth, and worms - this gives us a most impressive idea of the dreadful nature of sin! How such scenes should enlarge our views of the malignity of sin, and embitter our hearts against it!

Oh sin, sin - what have you done!
_________________________________

The Prevailing Sin of Christians

Increasing deadness to the world, and growing spirituality of mind, are sure results of "sanctified affliction."

The love of the world is the great snare of the church in every age! Worldly-mindedness is now the prevailing sin of Christians. We see them on all hands too eager to make themselves happy on earth, and seeking their enjoyments, if not in the sinful amusements of the world - yet in its "innocent and home-bred comforts." They look not at unseen and eternal things, but at seen and temporal things. Theirs is too much a life of "sense", refined it is true from its gross sinfulness - but still a life of sense, rather than a life of faith.

Hence there is "a needs be" for severe trials, if not to separate them and keep them separate from open and gross sins - yet to lift up their affections to things above, and to lead them to seek their happiness from God, the fountain of life; from Christ, the Redeemer of their souls; and from heaven, the object of their expectations.

When the world has been crucified to us, and we have been crucified to the world; when we have been taught its vanity and emptiness as a satisfying portion for the soul; when we have lost much of our anxiety to obtain its possessions, and of our dread of losing them; when we have turned from the folly of hewing out broken cisterns which can hold no water, and led more to the fountain of living waters; when we have lost our dependence on our comforts and possessions for happiness, and feel and rejoice in a glorious independence from "created good" for bliss - when there is really and truly a conscious elevation of soul towards God and divine things - there is the evidence that we are sanctified by our trials.

"Before I was afflicted I went astray, but not I keep Your word. It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn Your statutes. I know, O Lord, that Your judgments are righteous, and that in faithfulness You have afflicted me" (Psalm 119:67, 71, 75).

~John Angell James~