Evening, November 15, edited from Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening

“Your God has commanded your strength; show Yourself strong, O God, who have acted on our behalf.” — Psalm 68:28

It is wise — as well as necessary — to implore God continually to strengthen that which he has fashioned in us. It is because of their neglect in this that many Christians may blame themselves for those trials and afflictions of spirit which arise from unbelief. It is true that Satan seeks to flood the fair garden of the heart and make it a scene of desolation, but it is also true that many Christians leave open the floodgates themselves, and let in the dreadful deluge through carelessness and lack of prayer to their strong Helper. We often forget that the Author of our faith must also be the Preserver of it. The lamp which was burning in the temple was never allowed to go out, but it had to be daily replenished with fresh oil; in like manner, our faith can only live by being sustained with the oil of grace, and we can only obtain this from God himself. If we do not secure the needed fuel for our lamps we shall prove to be foolish virgins. He who built the world also upholds it, or it would fall in one tremendous crash; he who made us Christians must maintain us by his Spirit, or our ruin will be speedy and final. Let us, then, evening by evening, go to our Lord for the grace and strength we need. We have a strong argument to make passionately, for it is his own work of grace in which we ask him to strengthen “that which you have done for us.” Think you he will fail to protect and sustain that? If you only let your faith take hold of his strength, all the powers of darkness, led on by the master fiend of hell, cannot cast a cloud or shadow over your joy and peace. Why faint when you may be strong? Why suffer defeat when you may conquer? Oh! Take your wavering faith and sagging virtues to him who can revive and replenish them, and earnestly pray, “Strengthen, O God, that which you have worked in us.”