Wed., 10/23/13 Devotion (Ps. 116:1)

Today's encouragement comes from Psalm 116:1, where we read these words:

"I love the LORD, because He has heard my voice and my supplica-tions."

Among many other reasons, here is a good one for us to love God: He hears the prayers of His faithful churchmen (saints). What prayers does God "hear," in the covenantal sense? (After all, He knows the things religionists all over the world are babbling out all the time.) God hears prayers that are made through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

But even these prayers should be sincere and earnest. God hears prayers that come from the heart. He answers those people who *real-ly* want to be heard. God does not hear prayers offered from self-,
law-, or works-righteousness; but He does hear those that are "soak-ed," as it were, in the blood righteousness of Jesus.

[Puritan quote of the day: "Although to true religion there must indeed be something else besides affection, yet true religion consists so much in the affections that there can be no true religion without them." --Jon-athan Edwards, in, "A Treatise Concerning the Religious Affections"]