the Third Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
Our Daily Homily - Volume 2
Psalms 116:4—Then called I upon the Name of the Lord.
What could we do without the resource of prayer? When compassed with the cords of death, and held by trouble and sorrow, what help would there be for us who eschew the methods of self-deliverance which the men of the world do not scruple to employ, if we might not betake ourselves to our knees?
"Nay, but much rather let me late returning,
Bruised of my brethren, wounded from within,
Stoop with sad countenance and blushes burning,
Bitter with weariness and sick with sin.
"Straight to thy presence get me and reveal it,
Nothing ashamed of tears upon thy feet;
Show the sore wound, and beg thine hand to heal it;
Your Thee the bitter, pray Thee for the sweet."
Only let us never forget the immense importance of those five great "ifs":—
John 15:7, which touches our life in Him, and his in us, in unremitted fellowship.
Matthew 18:19, which touches our life with others, that must be clear as crystal.
Matthew 17:20, which concerns the vigor and health of our own soul-life.
1 John 5:14-15, which demands that we know God well.
John 14:14, which winnows out from prayer all that is inconsistent with the name of Jesus.
Oh for the deep-dwelling life, spent in the secret place, where earth’s voices grow faint, and God’s clear. Such a life is a perpetual appeal to God’s nature for succor—an appeal which awakens an instant response. "Call unto Me, and I will answer thee; and will shew thee great things, and fenced in, which thou knowest not."
