Morning, October 31, edited from Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening

“Renew a right (steadfast) spirit within me.” — Psalm 51:10
A backslider, if there is any spark of life left in him, will grieve at being restored. In this kind of renewal the same exercise of grace is required as at our conversion. We needed repentance then; we certainly need it now. We wanted faith that we might come to Christ at first; only the same grace can bring us to Jesus now. We wanted a word from the Most High, a word from the lips of the loving One, to end our fears then; we shall soon discover, when under a sense of present sin, that we need it now. No man can be renewed without as real and true a manifestation of the Holy Spirit’s energy as he felt at first, because the work is just as great, and flesh and blood are as much in the way now as ever they were. Let your personal weakness, Oh Christian, be an argument to make you pray earnestly to your God for help. Remember that David, when he felt himself to be powerless, did not fold his arms or close his mouth, but he hastened to the mercy-seat with the cry to “renew a right (loyal) spirit within me.” Do not let the doctrine that you, unaided, can do nothing make you sleep; but let it be a prod in your side to drive you with an reverent earnestness to Israel’s strong Helper. Oh, that you may have grace to plead with God, as though you pleaded for your very life–“Lord, renew a right (faithful) spirit within me.” He who sincerely prays to God to do this, will prove his honesty by using the methods through which God works. Be much in prayer; live much upon the Word of God; kill the lusts which have driven your Lord from you; be careful to watch over the future uprising of sin. The Lord has his own appointed ways; sit by the wayside and you will be ready when he passes by. Continue in all those blessed disciplines which will foster and nourish your fading graces; and, knowing that all the power must proceed from him, cease not to cry, “Renew a right spirit within me.”