Hans Sangtoki Bible Reading: Romans 6:1-23
“But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:22-23)
Saving work is God’s work alone. There is no way our evangelical work can ever win souls by our own account. Apart from God, we can’t do anything. All things are only by His grace and sustenance. If such is the case, we must tread our days in humility. So often, we are too proud before God and man, thinking we are self-sufficient to live for God and serve Him. Yet, we must learn to follow Christ. We are not called to be Christ. He is the head, and we ought to submit to Him. He is the one who has defeated death; we walk humbly in His strength. God alone can save, so let us walk humbly in our ministry and Christian life with prayer and utter reliance on Him.
Piercing Heaven: God Alone Can Save – Joseph Alleine
O Lord, how insufficient I am for this work. With what will I pierce the scales of Leviathan—or make my heart, hard as a millstone, feel what you desire it to feel?
Will I go and speak to the grave, and expect the dead to obey me and come forth?
Will I make a speech to the rocks, or lecture the mountains, and move them with arguments?
Will I make the blind see?
From the beginning of the world no one has ever heard of opening the eyes of a person born blind. But, Lord, you can pierce the heart of the sinner.
I can draw the bow at random, but you direct the arrow between the cracks of the armor.
I come in the name of the Lord of Hosts, the God of the armies of Israel. I come forth, like David against Goliath, to wrestle, not with flesh and blood, but with rulers and cosmic powers, and spiritual forces of evil of this world.
This day let the Lord defeat the Philistines, take away the armor from the strong man, and give me the captives out of his hand.
Lord, choose my words. Choose my weapons for me. And when I put my hand into the bag, and take out a stone and sling it, and carry it to the mark, make it sink—not into the forehead, but into the heart of the unconverted sinner.
Take him to the ground like Saul of Tarsus.
Lord God, help! How can I leave them this way? If they will not hear me, still I pray that you will hear me. I pray that they might live in your sight! Lord, save them, or they will perish.
My heart would melt to see their houses on fire when they were fast asleep in their beds. So is my soul moved within me to see them endlessly lost?
Lord, have compassion, and save them out of the burning. Put forth your divine power, and the work will be done.
Slay the sin, and save the soul of the sinner. Amen.