Most Holy God! who hast called us to be holy, we have heard Thy voice
asking, What manner of persons we ought to be in all holy living and
godliness? With our whole soul we answer in deep contrition and
humility: Holy Father! we ought to be so different from what we have
been. In faith and love, in zeal and devotion, in Christlike humility
and holiness, O Father! we have not been, before Thee and the world,
what we ought to be, what we could be. Holy Father! we now pray for all
who unite with us in this prayer, and implore of Thee to grant a great
revival of True Holiness in us and in all Thy Church. Visit, we beseech
Thee, visit all ministers of Thy word, that in view of Thy coming they
may take up and sound abroad the question, What manner of persons ought
ye to be? Lay upon them, and all Thy people, such a burden under
surrounding unholiness and worldliness, that they may not cease to cry
to Thee. Grant them such a vision of the highway of holiness, the new
and living way in Christ, that they may preach Christ our Sanctification
in the power and the joy of the Holy Ghost, with the confident and
triumphant voice of witnesses who rejoice in what Thou dost for them.
O God! roll away the reproach of Thy people, that their profession does
not make them humbler or holier, more loving, and more heavenly than
others.
O Holy God! give Thou Thyself the answer to Thy question, and teach us
and the world what manner of persons Thy people can be, in the day of
Thy power, in the beauty of holiness. We bow our knee to Thee, O Father,
that Thou wouldst grant us, according to the riches of Thy glory, to be
mightily strengthened in the inner man by the Spirit of Holiness. Amen.
1. What manner of men ought ye to be in all the holy living? This
is a question God has written down for us. Might it not help us
if we were to write down the answer, and say how holy we think
we ought to be? The clearer and more distinct our views are of
what God wishes, of what He has made possible, of what in
reality _ought_ to be, the more definite our acts of
confession, of surrender, and of faith can become.
2. Let every believer, who longs to be holy, join in the daily
prayer that God would visit His people with a great outpouring
of the Spirit of Holiness. Pray without ceasing that every
believer may live as a holy one.
3. 'Seeing that _ye look for_ these things.' Our life depends, in
more than one sense, upon what we look at. 'We look not at the
things which are seen.' It is only as we look at the Invisible
and Spiritual, and come under its power, that we shall be what
we ought to be in all holy living and godliness.
4. _Holy in Christ._ Let this be our parting word. However
strong the branch becomes, however far away it reaches round
the home, out of sight of the vine, all its beauty and all its
fruitfulness ever depend upon that one point of contact where
it grows out of the vine. So be it with us too. All the outer
circumference of my life has its centre in the ego--the living,
conscious I myself, in which my being roots. And this I is
rooted in Christ. Down in the depths of my inner life, there is
Christ holding, bearing, guiding, quickening me into holiness
and fruitfulness. In Him I am, In Him I will abide. His will
and commands will I keep; His Love and Power will I trust. And
I will daily seek to praise God that I am Holy in Christ.