Today's encouragement comes from Isaiah 56:6b & 7a, where we read these words:
" . . . Everyone who keeps from defiling the Sabbath, and holds fast My cove-nant—even them I will bring to My holy mountain, and make them joyful in My house of prayer. . . . "There is, I think, such a thing as “covenantal perfection”—where the regener-ate saints of Christ’s church are so much in love with God, that they keep, by His grace alone, the stipulations of the “covenant.” By this, I mean, they are joyful in the church services every Sunday/they submit to the discipline of the church/and they do the work of the ministry.
In our natural selves, we are infinitely gross sinners. In Jesus, we are new creatures. In our daily walks, we continue to sin, though we are making prog-ress in Christlikeness. In our outward covenant in the church we are “perfect-ly” faithful, by grace.
[Puritan quote of the day: "Prayer is the pouring out of the soul to God; not the pouring out of words, nor the pouring out of expressions; but the pouring out of the soul to God.” —William Bridge, in, "A Lifting Up For the Downcast"]
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