Daily Devotionals

Devotional: March 14th

" He will regard the prayer of the destitute." - Psalms 102:17.

A man that is destitute knows how to pray. He needs not any instructor. His miseries indoctrinate him wonderfully in the art of offering prayer. Let us know ourselves destitute, that we may know how to pray; destitute of strength, of wisdom, of due influence, of true happiness, of proper faith, of thorough consecration, of the knowledge of the Scriptures, of righteousness.

These words introduce and stand in immediate connection with a prophecy of glorious things to be witnessed in the latter times. We profess to be eager for the accomplishment of those marvellous things; but are we offering the prayer of the destitute? On the contrary, is not the Church at large too much like the church of Laodicea? Will not a just interpretation of many of its acts and ways, bring forth the words, ’’I am rich and increased with goods, and have need of nothing?" And do not its prayers meet with this reproachful answer - " Thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked, and know it not." Thy temporal affluence implies not spiritual affluence. Thy spiritual condition is inversely as the worldly prosperity that has turned thy head. I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire. Give all thy trashy gold - trashy while it is with thee - give it to my poor; and I will give thee true gold - namely, a sense of thy misery and meanness; a longing for grace, purity, usefulness; a love of thy fellow-men; and my love shed abroad in thy heart."

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