Devotion

GOD OF MY END,

It is my greatest, noblest pleasure
to be acquainted with thee
and with my rational, immortal soul;

It is sweet and entertaining
to look into my being
when all my powers and passions
are united and engaged in pursuit of thee,
when my soul longs and passionately breathes
after conformity to thee
and the full enjoyment of thee;

No hours pass away with so much pleasure
as those spent in communion with thee
and with my heart.

O how desirable, how profitable to the Christian life
is a spirit of holy watchfulness
and godly jealousy over myself,
when my soul is afraid of nothing
except grieving and offending thee,
the blessed God, my Father and friend,
whom I then love and long to please,
rather than be happy in myself!

Knowing, as I do, that this is the pious temper,
worthy of the highest ambition, and closest
pursuit of intelligent creatures
and holy Christians,
may my joy derive from glorifying and
delighting thee.

I long to fill all my time for thee,
whether at home or in the way;
to place all my concerns in thy hands;
to be entirely at thy disposal,
having no will or interest of my own.

Help me to live to thee for ever,
to make thee my last and only end,
so that I may never more in one instance
love my sinful self.


The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions Aurthur Bennett, ed. (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1975), p. 236-7.

With thanks to Bob Roach, in memory of Jean Roach.

In Him was life, and that life was the light of men

John 1:4 is saying that creative life-giving power comes from Jesus.  That life itself resides in Jesus.  A little later on in John's Gospel we will hear Jesus say, "I am the resurrection and the life."  It is hard for us to see the one on one correlation between life itself and Jesus himself.  What does it mean that Jesus gives life?  I think that God has necessarily brought about the existence of Jesus because of the very nature of life itself, but what does it mean?  John adds the application at the end of verse 4, "and that life was the light of men."  Jesus' life is the thing that provides spiritual illumination, understanding, comprehension, or in our modern language: good information about God. This is profound, it means that the life of Jesus is the source of spiritual information for everyone.  This isn't such a far fetched exclusivist idea as you would think, because people from many religions have a place for Jesus somewhere, as a great prophet, a holy man, or other things.  Even so, to have true spiritual understanding one cannot ignore, but rather must accept, Jesus' own self-disclosure that was so clearly preserved in the Gospels. Spiritual darkness doesn't necessarily mean that a person has no knowledge about God, or has not heard some really good information about God.  Spiritual darkness can be like a dark cloud of circumstance that envelops our life, that hangs over our head like a blanket, so that we neither see, nor even breathe!  An understanding and acceptance of Jesus will dispel this.  A realization and communion with the Lord will pull the blanket from our head.  Coming to Christ is like coming out of the spiritual fog, out of the darkness.  But, with John's Gospel, we sometimes see that "the light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it."