Daily Devotionals: (June 11th): A Prayer for Consistency in My Walk

Reading: “Walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing” —Colossians 1:10

Lord, I come this morning to ask anew for mercy to pardon and grace to help me. Especially give me the grace of a holy consistency, doing all for Your glory, having boldness to speak for You in the world. May my walk and conversation be the living evidence and expression of the sincerity and reality of the inner life.

For this end may I live more on Jesus. May my life be ”hid with Christ in God.” May I grow more and more out of myself and into my living Head. Self-humbled and self-emptied, may I be ever resorting to the all-fullness of an all-sufficient Saviour. May this be my habitual feeling: “Without Him I can do nothing.” May this be my constant prayer: “Help me, Saviour.”

May I be enabled this day, in His strength, to do something for God. However lowly my lot, however humble my abilities, may I feel, Lord, that You have work for me in Your vineyard. Let me not bury my talent in the earth; may I “occupy it until You come” that “You may receive Your own with interest.”

Have mercy on Your whole church. Pour out on all its members and office-bearers the spirit of meekness and zeal, of power and love, and of a sound mind. May “Holiness to the Lord” be written on its portals! Hasten the blessed period when the love of Jesus, being enthroned in every heart and every church, “we all shall be one.” And all I ask is for the Redeemer’s sake. Amen.

Adapted from the Rev. John McDuff, D.D., The Morning Watches, 1852.

John Ross Macduff was born at Bonhard, near Perth, on May 23, 1818. After studying at the University of Edinburgh, he became parish minister of Kettins, Forfarshire,  in 1842. In 1849 he moved to St. Madoes, Perthshire, and in 1855 to Sandyford, Glasgow. He received the degree of D.D. from the University of Glasgow in 1862, and from the University of New York about the same time. He retired from pastoral work in 1871, moved to Chislehurst, Kent where he died in 1887.