The Seventh of September.

AMEND YOUR WAYS --- Jeremiah 7:4, 5.

"Trust ye not in lying words, saying, The temple of the Lord, The temple of the Lord, The temple of the Lord, are these; but thoroughly amend your ways and your doings, etc." --- Jeremiah 7:4, 5.

Of true prayer and worship in spirit and in truth, see also John 4:24; Romans 12:1; James 1:27.

As a contrite heart is the most pleasing temple of God, so speaking with God in words of our own, as a child does with with his father, is the best book of prayer.

The most cunning method by which Satan deceives many now, is the mistaking of extensive knowledge and assurance of their own making, not witnessed by the Spirit for true faith; or trusting some outward form of worship, or having communion with others, or pretending to gospel experience and liberty, and thereby claiming the office of building up souls, though a true change was never wrought in their own hearts.

For what can all our reading, prayers, going to church and sacrament, profit us, without this? Before all this shall be acceptable to the Lord, we must be renewed in our minds, and prove by our words and deeds that we are the living temples of God.

Is there a thing beneath the sun,
That strives with thee my heart to share?
Ah! tear it thence, and reign alone,
The Lord of every motion there.
Then shall my heart from earth be free,
When it has found repose in thee.

Oh hide this self from me, that I
No more, but Christ in me, may live!
My vile affections crucify;
Let no darling lust survive;
In all things may I nothing see,
Nothing desire or seek but thee.

Devotion for September 7