Prayer for a Worthy Walk, VI of ?

Prayer For A Worthy Walk

Colossians 1:9-10

“For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God;”

The Daily Renewal of Our Consecration

It is a most serious mistake to suppose that at regeneration the understanding is enlightened once for all, that it is so completely illumined as to be in no further need of divine assistance afterward. It is as grave an error to imagine that the surrender of the will to God as conversion was so entire that it is unnecessary for the saint to daily renew his consecration to Him. Such errors are manifestly refuted by a prayer of David’s: ‘With my whole heart have I sought thee: O let me not wander from thy commandments’ (Psa. 110:10). Though David had fully yielded himself to the Lord and had made more than ordinary progress in godliness, yet he felt himself to be in deep need of perpetual quickening, directing, and upholding, lest he lose the knowledge he already possessed and backslide from that course upon which he had entered. The truth is that the more experience we have of God’s ways, the more sensible we become of our deplorable proneness to wander from Him. On the other hand, the more we truly seek God with the whole heart, the more our spiritual light will be increased, for by a closer walking with Him we obtain a clearer and fuller apprehension of His holiness; and that in turn makes us more conscious of our defects, for it is in His light that we see light.

Every healthy saint experiences such a longing after a knowledge of God’s will as this prayer breathes. The more knowledge he obtains of God’s will the more he becomes aware of his ignorance. And why is this the case? Because he has acquired a larger concept of his duty. At first Christian consciousness of duty consists more in the general than in its details, more of the outward walk and the external acts of worship, more of quantity than of quality. But before long he discovers that God requires him to regulate the inner man and subdue his soul to Him. In fact, he learns that this is the principal task assigned him. As the believer more, and more realizes the breadth of God’s commandment (Psa. 11`9:96) and the exceeding spirituality of His law (Rom. 7:14), he becomes painfully conscious of how far, far short he falls of discharging his responsibilities, and how sadly he has failed in this and that respect. Nevertheless, such a humbling discovery is evidence that his sense of duty has been enlarged, and that his own inability to perform it is all the more apparent to him.