Monday, August 25, 2008

Needful Things

This advice from John Newton is enough to chew on without comment. Enjoy!

“The days speed away apace; each one bears its own burden with it, to return no more. Both pleasures and pains that are past are gone forever. What is yet future will likewise be soon past. The end is coming. Oh to realize the thought and to judge of things now in some measure suitable to the judgment we shall form of them when we are about to leave them all! Many things which now elate or depress us will then appear to be trifles light as air. One thing is needful: to have our hearts united to the Lord in humble faith; to set Him always before us; to rejoice in Him as our Shepherd and our portion; to submit to all His appointments, not out of necessity, because He is stronger than we, but with a cheerful acquiescence, because He is wise and good and loves us better than we do ourselves; to feed upon his truth; to have our understandings, wills, affections, imaginations, memory all filled and impressed with the great mysteries of redeeming love; to do all for Him, to receive all from Him, to find all in Him. I have mentioned many things, but they are all comprised in one, a life of faith in the Son of God.” Dated 8/28/1779.

From "The Voice of the Heart, p 221

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