Confessing shallow prayer and repentance: Clip from Consider Revival V

And I think universally, we could all say prayer is a very difficult thing. I would throw in another one of those. In our day and age, as busy as we are, as noisy as we are, it becomes more and more precious to me, at least, to find that quiet place and quiet moment to get with God, as he says in secret prayer.

The Neglect of Secret Prayer

Benar puts it like this, why is there so much speaking, yet so little prayer? Why is there so much running to and fro, yet so little prayer? Why so many meetings with our fellow men, yet so few meetings with God?

Yeah, and if you think that Andrew Benar, or this is Horatius Benar, if you think that Horatius is just talking, you can read something of the lives of the Benar boys. They are particularly distinguished by prayer.

His Andrew Benar's diary reads like a prayer journal. It's like a book on how to pray. It's just the most extraordinary diary for that. Well my last one is where they talk about the sin, and I'm going to put it in our language, the sin of allowing a shallow form of repentance to serve for the real thing.

Shallow Repentance and Superficial Conviction

This is how they say it, not given to reflect upon our own ways, nor allowing conviction to have a thorough work upon us. So two things, they start off, I just don't really give time to thinking about how I'm living out the Christian life.

You know, I skim along the surface. Second, I do not, when I do feel conviction in a sermon, or in a book, or a quiet time, I do not allow that conviction to work thoroughly through every aspect. So I'm going to stop there for a second.

Steve, I have found that as I grow older, I can, you know, you do find yourself, if you're not careful, you can become kind of hardened to religious truth. You think, well I've heard it a thousand times, or I've said it a thousand times.

But I do find that by the grace of God, my heart is still able to be tender toward God, and I hear these things, and I think, it's true, God, it's me. But here's what I have found very difficult. I have found it very difficult a week later, even when I'm focusing on it, to be able to give evidence of one single thing I've done differently after conviction.

Now, I've thought about it, I've talked to God about it, but if you say, okay, but okay, I understand that, and I'm not saying you're disingenuous, but can you tell me one habit that's been changed? One thing that's added to your life?

One thing that's removed from your life? It seems to me like it would be easier to roll a giant boulder up a hill than to get John Snyder to make a concrete change. Now, it does happen, but it's never without real kind of soul-searching and shame and saying, John, you did it again.

You appreciated the sermon, you loved the book, you talked to someone about the chapter, and next week, you haven't altered anything. You have lived in a land of good intentions. They go on to say this.

It says, deceiving ourselves, how? By resting upon absence from and abhorrence of evils from the light of a natural conscience and looking upon the same as an evidence of a real change of state and nature.

Self-Deception Through Natural Conscience

In other words, my natural conscience, I hear someone talking about, oh, this is so bad, people are acting like this, and you think, well, I feel fine about that. I'm not bothered at all because I'm not that kind of person, and you think that just because your conscience isn't bothered without seriously examining and praying about the matter, you think you're sinless, and you rest in that false sense of righteousness, self-deceit.

So I find that very easy to do as I hear other people mention, or you hear sins of our culture mentioned, I think, well, I'm not doing it, and so I'm just fine. So a very easy way to deceive ourselves.

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