A group of English Protestant believers who lived in the 16th and 17th centuries are often referred to as the “Puritans”. These group of people were very strict in their beliefs and sought to truly follow Jesus Christ and be like Him. When reading many of their writings today, many people look at them and say they took things WAY too far in what they would and wouldn’t do in their efforts to precisely follow the commands of Jesus and grow in their relationship with Him.
I wonder though, if anything is “too far” to go in giving up the pleasures of this world and seeking to become like Him. Jesus Himself said, “So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:33) We often spend too much time dwelling on what we “lose” if we give up everything to follow Him instead of what we “gain”.
I was reading some puritan writings this week, and came across this “prayer”. It didn’t tell who the author was, but the words truly portray the writer’s heart of seeking to TRULY follow Jesus – to be like Him!
Confession and Petition
Holy Lord, I have sinned times without number, and been guilty of pride and unbelief, of failure to find Your mind in Your Word, of neglect to seek You in my daily life. My transgressions and short-comings present me with a list of accusations, but I bless You that they will not stand against me, for all have been laid on Christ. Go on to subdue my corruptions, and grant me grace to live above them. Let not the passions of the flesh nor lustings of the mind bring my spirit into subjection, but rule over me in liberty and power.
I thank You that many of my prayers have been refused. I have asked amiss and do not have, I have prayed from lusts and been rejected, I have longed for Egypt and been given a wilderness. Go on with Your patient work, answering ‘no’ to my wrongful prayers, and fitting me to accept it. Purge me from every false desire, every base aspiration, everything contrary to Your rule. I thank You for Your wisdom and Your love, for all the acts of discipline to which I am subject, for sometimes putting me into the furnace to refine my gold and remove my dross.
No trial is so hard to bear as a sense of sin. If You should give me choice to live in pleasure and keep my sins, or to have them burnt away with trial, give me sanctified affliction. Deliver me from every evil habit, every accretion of former sins, everything that dims the brightness of Your grace in me, everything that prevents me taking delight in You. Then I shall bless You, God, for helping me to be upright.
I wonder how awesome the year 2015 would be for us if we join the writer and from our hearts pray like that!