diligent private prayer
J. C. Ryle’s A Call to Prayer is one of my favorite books. It’s a concise, little book that explains the importance of private prayer. This part that I’ve quoted is gold and stirs my heart to pray more diligently whenever I read it.
I dare say this opinion will startle some readers. I have little doubt that many look on eminent holiness as a kind of special gift, which none but a few must pretend to aim at. They admire it at a distance in books. They think it beautiful when they see an example near themselves. But as to its being a thing within the reach of any but a very few, such a notion never seems to enter their minds. In short, they consider it a kind of monopoly granted to a few favored believers, but certainly not to all.
Now I believe that this is a most dangerous mistake. I believe that spiritual as well as natural greatness depends in a high degree on the faithful use of means within everybody’s reach. Of course I do not say we have a right to expect a miraculous grant of intellectual gifts; but this I do say, that when a man is once converted to God, his progress in holiness will be much in accordance with his own diligence in the use of God’s appointed means. And I assert confidently that the principal means by which most believers have become great in the church of Christ is the habit of diligent private prayer.
—J. C. Ryle, A Call to Prayer
daily reading
| December 1, 2024 |
|---|
| Deut. 5; Ps. 88; Isa. 33; Rev. 3 |
| WCF 5; WLC 30-35; WSC 20-23 |