A good man is willing to know the worst of himself, and particularly under affliction, desires to be told wherefore God contends with him and what God designs in correcting him.
Matthew HenryRead
When God intends great mercy for his people, the first thing he doth is to set them a praying.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that prayer is an essential practice for receiving divine mercy and blessings.
Matthew Henry's quote emphasizes the importance of prayer as a precursor to great mercy from God. It implies that when divine intentions of goodwill are directed towards individuals or communities, the act of prayer becomes a catalyst for receiving those blessings, highlighting a relationship between spiritual practice and a higher benevolence.
In practice
This quote can be shared during a community prayer gathering.
A good man is willing to know the worst of himself, and particularly under affliction, desires to be told wherefore God contends with him and what God designs in correcting him.
There is a burden of care in getting riches; fear in keeping them; temptation in using them; guilt in abusing them; sorrow in losing them; and a burden of account at last to be given concerning them.
To wait on God is to live a life of desire toward Him, delight in Him, dependence on Him, and devotedness to Him.
Scriptures were written, not to satisfy our curiosity and make us astronomers, but to lead us to God, and make us saints.
What God requires of us he himself works in us, or it is not done. He that commands faith, holiness, and love, creates them by the power of his grace going along with his word, that he may have all the praise.
No attribute of God is more dreadful to sinners than His holiness.
I am resolved that I will not through humility become the devil's attorney. I will endeavor to speak a good word for the truth.
The time will come when all people will view with horror light way in which society and its courts of law now take human life; and when that time comes, the way will be clear to device some better method of dealing with poverty and ignorance and their frequent byproducts, which we call crime.
Every moment and every event of everyman's life on earth plants something in his soul. For just as the wind carries thousands of winged seeds, so each moment brings with it germs of spiritual vitality that come to rest imperceptibly in the minds and wills of men.
The technocrat is the natural friend of the dictator—computers and dictatorship; but the revolutionary lives in the gap which separates technical progress from social totality, and inscribed there his dream of permanent revolution. This dream, therefore, is itself action, reality, and an effective menace to all established order; it renders possible what it dreams about.
I hate endings. Just detest them. Beginnings are definitely the most exciting, middles are perplexing and endings are a disaster. … The temptation towards resolution, towards wrapping up the package, seems to me a terrible trap. Why not be more honest with the moment? The most authentic endings are the ones which are already revolving towards another beginning. That’s genius.
Business underlies everything in our national life, including our spiritual life. Witness the fact that in the Lord's Prayer, the first petition is for daily bread. No one can worship God or love his neighbor on an empty stomach.
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