Job 27:10
The False and the True
Hypocrites never had the spirit of prayer given them. They may have been stirred up to the external performance of this duty, and that with a great deal of earnestness and affection, and yet always have been destitute of the true spirit of prayer. The spirit of prayer is an holy spirit, a gracious spirit.
Wherever there is a true spirit of supplication, there is the spirit of grace. The true spirit of prayer is no other than God’s own Spirit dwelling in the hearts of the saints. And as this spirit comes from God, so it naturally tends to God in holy breathings and pantings. It naturally leads to God to converse with him by prayer. Therefore the Spirit is said to make intercession for the saints with groaning which cannot be uttered (Romans 8:26).
It is far otherwise with the true convert. His work is not done; but he finds still a great work to do, and great wants to be supplied. He sees himself still to be a poor, empty helpless creature, and that he still stands in great and continual need of God’s help. He is sensible that without God he can do nothing.
A false conversion makes a man in his own eyes self-sufficient. He says he is rich, increased with goods, has need of nothing, and knows not that he is wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked. But after a true conversion, the soul remains sensible of its own impotence and emptiness, as it is in itself, and its sense of it is rather increased than diminished. It is still sensible of its universal dependence on God for everything.
A true convert is sensible that his grace is very imperfect; and he is very far from having all that he desires. Instead of that, by conversion are begotten in him new desires which he never had before. He now finds in him holy appetites, a hungering and thirsting after righteousness, a longing after more acquaintance and communion with God. So that he has business enough still at the throne of grace; yea, his business there, instead of being diminished, is, since his conversion, rather increased.
Readings taken from Day By Day With Jonathan Edwards
The False and the True
Hypocrites never had the spirit of prayer given them. They may have been stirred up to the external performance of this duty, and that with a great deal of earnestness and affection, and yet always have been destitute of the true spirit of prayer. The spirit of prayer is an holy spirit, a gracious spirit.
Wherever there is a true spirit of supplication, there is the spirit of grace. The true spirit of prayer is no other than God’s own Spirit dwelling in the hearts of the saints. And as this spirit comes from God, so it naturally tends to God in holy breathings and pantings. It naturally leads to God to converse with him by prayer. Therefore the Spirit is said to make intercession for the saints with groaning which cannot be uttered (Romans 8:26).
It is far otherwise with the true convert. His work is not done; but he finds still a great work to do, and great wants to be supplied. He sees himself still to be a poor, empty helpless creature, and that he still stands in great and continual need of God’s help. He is sensible that without God he can do nothing.
A false conversion makes a man in his own eyes self-sufficient. He says he is rich, increased with goods, has need of nothing, and knows not that he is wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked. But after a true conversion, the soul remains sensible of its own impotence and emptiness, as it is in itself, and its sense of it is rather increased than diminished. It is still sensible of its universal dependence on God for everything.
A true convert is sensible that his grace is very imperfect; and he is very far from having all that he desires. Instead of that, by conversion are begotten in him new desires which he never had before. He now finds in him holy appetites, a hungering and thirsting after righteousness, a longing after more acquaintance and communion with God. So that he has business enough still at the throne of grace; yea, his business there, instead of being diminished, is, since his conversion, rather increased.
Readings taken from Day By Day With Jonathan Edwards
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