Robert McWard: Christ is the altar on which we must lay our gifts

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Reformed Covenanter

Cancelled Commissioner
... As believers draw all their strength from him, so they expect acceptation only through him, and for him: they do not look for it, but in the beloved: they dare not draw near to God in duty, but by him: this is the new and living way, which is consecrate[d] for them: and if such, who offer to come to God, do no enter in hereat, in stead of being admitted to a familiar converse with God, they shall find him a consuming fire: when the saints have greatest liberty in prayer (and so of all other performances, when their hearts are most lifted up in the ways of the Lord) they abhor at thinking their prayer can any otherwise be set forth before him as incense, or the lifting up of their hands as the evening sacrifice, but as presented by the great intercessor and perfumed by the merit of his oblation.

If they could weep out the marrow of their bones, and the moisture of their body in mourning over sin; yet they durst not think of having what comes from so impure a spring, and runs through so polluted a channel, presented to God but by Jesus Christ, in order to acceptation; for as they look to the exalted Saviour, to get their repentance from him, so when by the pourings out upon them the Spirit of grace and supplication, he hath made them pour out their hearts before him, and hath melted them into true tenderness, so that their mourning is a great mourning, they carry back these tears to be washen and bathed in his blood, as knowing without this of how little worth and value with God their salt water is; but when they are thus washed, he puts them in his bottle, and then pours them out again to them in the wine of strong consolation: thus are they made glade in his house of prayer, and their sighs and groans come up with acceptance upon his Altar. ...

For more, see Robert McWard: Christ is the altar on which we must lay our gifts.
 
when the saints have greatest liberty in prayer (and so of all other performances, when their hearts are most lifted up in the ways of the Lord) they abhor at thinking their prayer can any otherwise be set forth before him as incense, or the lifting up of their hands as the evening sacrifice, but as presented by the great intercessor and perfumed by the merit of his oblation.

The frustration of heartless prayer is a burden I no longer endure. How is that possible? Because I have ceased offering empty prayer as a duty. My prayers may start as a work to be done, but they are limited to seeking the Spirit's help in prayer. If, after a while, I sense that the Spirit is not coming to my aid, I stop praying and start searching my heart for the cause. Sometimes I find an obstacle in my heart and confess it as sin, but other times I conclude that I remain unhelped for reasons known only to God. When this is the case, I stop praying, considering it as a work of the flesh that God can never accept.

John 6:63a
It is the Spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing.

for as they look to the exalted Saviour, to get their repentance from him, so when by the pourings out upon them the Spirit of grace and supplication, he hath made them pour out their hearts before him, and hath melted them into true tenderness, so that their mourning is a great mourning, they carry back these tears to be washen and bathed in his blood, as knowing without this of how little worth and value with God their salt water is; but when they are thus washed, he puts them in his bottle, and then pours them out again to them in the wine of strong consolation: thus are they made glade in his house of prayer, and their sighs and groans come up with acceptance upon his Altar. ...

What a beautiful picture of prayer in the Spirit.

Thanks, Daniel
 
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