In need of revival

[AV1611]

"Wilt thou not revive us again: that thy people may rejoice in thee?"
- Psalm 85:6​

Brethren, I worry that my faith is all dry and doctrinaire and that communion with God has wilted. I have turned to reading more of Christ and yet whilst I know who he is and what he did for me upon the cross and I trust in that 100% yet there are no feelings of love, no emotions of love towards him...I am grateful but is that love?

What do you suggest? How is one revived?

 

[JM]

We will look then, with God's blessing, at some of those things that contract, sicken, and shut up the heart, before we look at the causes and nature of what expands and enlarges it. The new heart of grace is exceedingly tender. And therefore there are many things that will cause this tender heart to shut up and contract itself.

1. One is GUILT. Whenever guilt lies upon a man's conscience, it shuts him up altogether in his feelings Godwards; it narrows, it contracts his heart. There is no room in his soul for divine enjoyments; there are no divine consolations shed abroad, no in-shinings of divine light, no incomings of heavenly love.

2. Another is UNBELIEF. O what a narrowing, contracting, and shutting-up power is there when unbelief works powerfully in a man's carnal mind! How the tender plant of faith shrinks into a small compass before its chilling blasts! How unable then are we to receive the truth in the love of it--unable to act upon the perfections of the Lord of life and glory--unable to come forth into the light of His countenance--unable to enjoy any one testimony of His manifested favor--unable to realize a single mark, or testimony of the grace of God being in the heart!

3. DARKNESS OF MIND is another thing that contracts and shuts up a man's heart Godwards. Many flowers, when night comes on, hide themselves as it were from it; their petals gather up and close over the bosom which, during the day, expanded itself to the warm rays of the sun, defending it from the cold dews and chilling breaths of the night. So spiritually. How darkness of soul (and all the Lord's people are brought to mourn and sigh under felt darkness) contracts the heart! How it closes up every gracious feeling! How it checks every going forth of the soul in the actings of faith, hope, and love! What a veil it spreads over the hidden man of the heart! So that there is nothing good or gracious apparently in exercise.

4. DEADNESS, COLDNESS, TORPIDITY OF FEELING GODWARDS, that wretched state in which many of God's people are so continually-- how this shuts up, contracts, and narrows the heart Godwards! How unable a man is in this dead, cold, torpid state, to enlarge his own soul! Does he attempt to pray? He has no power to pour forth a single desire. Does he attempt to read? He can scarcely get through half-a-dozen verses without wandering. Does he come to hear a Gospel message? There is scarcely anything that even his outward ear receives. He is unable to fix his thoughts and affections, unable to realize the presence, love, and power of God in his soul. Does he attempt to converse on spiritual things? He has scarcely a word to say, shut up in his feelings toward the family of God, shut up in his feelings toward the Lord Himself.

We must know by painful experience what it is to have these narrow, contracted, shut-up hearts, that we may by the contrast know what it is to have an enlarged, expanded heart. We cannot know the one except by knowing the other. It is this miserable feeling of contraction, which makes us know the difference between these painful sensations, and of an enlarged, expanded heart.

Divine Enlargement and Spiritual Obedience
Preached at Zoar Chapel, London, on
August 10, 1845, by Joseph Philpot

 

[Chris]

"Wilt thou not revive us again: that thy people may rejoice in thee?"
- Psalm 85:6​

Brethren, I worry that my faith is all dry and doctrinaire and that communion with God has wilted. I have turned to reading more of Christ and yet whilst I know who he is and what he did for me upon the cross and I trust in that 100% yet there are no feelings of love, no emotions of love towards him...I am grateful but is that love?

What do you suggest? How is one revived?

How is your prayer life?

 

[turmeric]

Praying for you.

 

[AV1611]

How is your prayer life?

Private prayer: Recently it has been fine...I stopped using set prayers from the BCP and switched to extempore (?spl).

Public prayer: Pretty much non-existent...I find it very difficult.

The problem started really once I left the Brethren (the Lord's day Breaking of Bread was a blessing I really miss) and went into the CofE. I know that whilst we have an experimental religion it is not one based upon experience but when I read of the saints of old and their conversion stories of nights racked with guilt for sin and I turn to mine own...it seems for me to be more intellectual than feeling.

Art thou weaned from Egypt's pleasures?
God in secret thee shall keep,
There unfold His hidden treasures,
There His love's exhaustless deep​

 

[Blueridge Believer]

We all go through these "valleys" from time to time brother and it seems barren. All we can do is cleave unto Christ and his Word and he will refresh our spirits and our hearts.

One of my favorite hymns by John Newton:


How tedious and tasteless the hours
When Jesus I no longer see;
Sweet prospects, sweet birds and sweet flowers,
Have all lost their sweetness to me;
The midsummer sun shines but dim,
The fields strive in vain to look gay.
But when I am happy in Him,
December’s as pleasant as May.

His Name yields the richest perfume,
And sweeter than music His voice;
His presence disperses my gloom,
And makes all within me rejoice.
I should, were He always thus nigh,
Have nothing to wish or to fear;
No mortal as happy as I,
My summer would last all the year.

Content with beholding His face,
My all to His pleasure resigned,
No changes of season or place
Would make any change in my mind:
While blessed with a sense of His love,
A palace a toy would appear;
All prisons would palaces prove,
If Jesus would dwell with me there.

Dear Lord, if indeed I am Thine,
If Thou art my sun and my song,
Say, why do I languish and pine?
And why are my winters so long?
O drive these dark clouds from the sky,
Thy soul cheering presence restore;
Or take me to Thee up on high,
Where winter and clouds are no more.

 

[JM]

Brother, the following sermon was brought to my attention in time of need and I hope to share it with you.

THERE was a reality in Jobs religion. It was not of a flimsy, notional, superficial nature; it was not merely a sound Calvinistic creed, and nothing more; it was not a religion of theory and speculation, nor a well-compacted system of doctrines and duties. There was something deeper, something more divine in Jobs religion than any such mere pretence, delusion, imitation, or hypocrisy. And if our religion be of the right kind, there will be something deeper in it, something more powerful, spiritual, and supernatural, than notions and doctrines, theories and speculations, however scriptural and correct, merely passing to and fro in our minds. There will be a divine reality in it, if God the Spirit be the Author of it; and there will be no trifling with the solemn things of God, and with our own immortal souls.

link

 

[IanWatson]

I will Pray for you. And pray for me too!

 

[AV1611]

Thank you all!