October 13 Daily Devotional

Bible Verse

"Watch and pray" (Matt. 26:41).

Devotional

Watch and pray, with all diligence and perseverance. Expect an answer to your prayer. Expect a promise to your request. Expect a compliance with your suit. Be as much assured that God will answer as that you have asked, or that he has promised. Ask in faith. Only believe. Watch daily at the posts and at the gates of the return. Look for it at any moment, and through any providence. Expect it not in your own way, but in the Lord's. Do not be astonished if he should answer your prayer in the very opposite way to that you had anticipated.

With this view, watch every providence, even the smallest. You do not know when or how the answer may come—at what hour, or in what way. Therefore watch. The Lord may answer in a great and strong wind, in an earthquake, in a fire, or in a still small voice. Therefore watch every providence, to know which will be God's answer to you.

Do not pray as if you asked for or expected a refusal. God delights in your holy fervency, your humble boldness, and your persevering importunity. "The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective" (Jas. 5:16). Pray submissively. Expect hopefully. Watch vigilantly. And wait patiently.

Behold then the throne of grace! Was any resting-place ever so sacred and so sweet? Could God himself invest it with richer or greater attraction? There he dispenses all the blessings of sovereign grace—pardon, justification, adoption, sanctification, and all that connects the present state of the believer with eternal glory. There he dispenses grace itself—grace to guide, grace to support, grace to comfort, and grace to help in time of need. There he sits, the God of grace, proclaiming himself "The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin" (Ex. 34:6–7). There he extends the scepter of grace, bidding welcome to the sons and daughters of want, the weary and the heavy laden, the guilty, the broken in heart, the poor, the friendless, the bereaved. There stands Jesus the High Priest and Mediator, full of grace and truth, waving to and fro his golden censer, from which pours forth the fragrant incense of his atoning merits, wreathing in one offering, as it ascends, the name, the needs, and the prayer of the lowly worshiper. And there, too, is the Spirit of grace, breathing in the soul, discovering the want, composing the petition, and making intercession for the saints according to the will of God.

Behold the throne of grace, then, and draw near! You are welcome. Come with your cross, come with your infirmity, come with your guilt, come with your want, come with your wounded spirit, come with your broken heart, come and welcome to the throne of grace! Come without price, come without worthiness, come without preparation, come without fitness, come with your hard heart, come and welcome to the throne of grace! God, your Father, bids you welcome. Jesus, your Advocate, bids you welcome. The Spirit, the Author of prayer, bids you welcome. All the happy and the blessed who cluster around it, bid you welcome. The spirits of just men made perfect in glory, bid you welcome. The angels—"ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation" (Heb. 1:14)—bid you welcome. All the holy below and all the glorified above—all, all bid you, poor trembling soul, welcome, welcome, thrice welcome, to the throne of grace!

Behold the Throne of grace!
The promise calls me near:
there Jesus shows a smiling face
and waits to answer prayer.

(John Newton, 1779)

Be sure to read the Preface by Octavius Winslow and A Note from the Editor by Larry E. Wilson.

Larry Wilson is an ordained minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. In addition to having served as the General Secretary of the Committee on Christian Education of the OPC (2000–2004) and having written a number of articles and booklets (such as God's Words for Worship and Why Does the OPC Baptize Infants) for New Horizons and elsewhere, he has pastored OPC churches in Minnesota, Indiana, and Ohio. We are grateful to him for his editing of Morning Thoughts, the OPC Daily Devotional for 2011.