Hurried devotions!

Hurried devotions make weak faith, feeble convictions, questionable piety. To be little with God is to be little for God. To cut short the praying makes the whole religious character short, scrimp, niggardly, and slovenly.

E M BOUNDS

The problem is that we know this to be true, but we must get in the habit of remembering it. This why it is so helpful to keep re-reading E M Bounds. He reminds us what is already obvious in our hearts. If we genuinely love God, we will take more time to spend our very best time with him.

But how to do this?

This is the paradox of our situation. For it is only through deep devotion and pray that we can yearn to love God more and more. It is only by praying for deeper praying that we grow to pray. It is only by studying God's word that we grow to love his word.

Oh, wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this deadly paradox? Thanks be God that in Christ, His grace is already sufficient for me. Only by grace can we enter, and only by grace can we stand! May God enable all of us to completely depend on his grace for everything, including the grace to pray and enjoying him on a daily basis!

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