Giving credit where credit is due, I quote concerning “the famous words of Richard of Chichester’s prayer – to enable men and women ‘to know Jesus Christ more clearly, to love Him more dearly, to follow Him more nearly’.”
In reading William Barclay’s Daily Study Bible Series on Romans, the above quotation caught my attention immediately. I could hear that brother from years ago as he uttered those words.
We all have goals in life, some well directed and some misdirected. There are those who aspire to be “top dog” in their field and achieve it. Others find it far easier to just let things roll along and “flow with the tide”.
For the Christian, he recoils at remembrance of the life that engulfed him prior to that moment he recognized himself a sinner, estranged from God and without hope for eternity future; how he cried out to God for forgiveness and experienced the impartation of the new life in Christ. Everything changed! He now possessed a new nature and life’s objectives became different. Oh! The old nature had not left, but this new one had the desire and ability to overcome the old. A battle ensued and will continue until he enters the presence of God in Heaven — that perfect environment, with a spiritual body.
There is little more encouraging to the Christian than the words we find in the Epistle of 1 John. Remember, the apostle was the one that leaned on the breast of Jesus and love is his theme throughout his writings.
“See how great love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are. For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is. And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.” (1 John 3:1-3)
Read again what Richard of Chichester prayed!
ETCetera 