I ran across this clipping called Rules for Daily Conduct in a recent study I was preparing for in Luke. It didn’t quite go with my material but I found it personally helpful to me and clipped it for myself and wanted to add it to my website to share with you. It’s from a book called The Family at Home by Gorham D. Abott that was written back in 1833. How I stumble across this stuff I don’t know, I am just thankful that I do because I have much appreciation for grandfatherly advice on how to live out the Christian Faith on a practical day-to-day basis. Something tells me that none of us can have too many people in our lives encouraging us in our daily walk with Christ so I wanted to pass it along and share its message with you.
Personally, I find much counsel and encouragement from the writer’s of the Christian classics; people who have longed passed on whom I know are cheering for us in heaven to finish the race, anxious for us to continue to carry the same torch they carried and to pass it on in our generation. (Heb. 12:1)
This one especially resonated with me because of his emphasis for a daily evening review. Lately I have been personally finding that daily evening review is just as vital as a morning quiet time is. We go to Christ in the morning for strength and direction, and we seek him in the evening for counsel, confession and peace over the days events. The evening calls us to account for the days events and gives us an opportunity to review how we did with the days temptations, obstacles and worries. The evening is an opportunity to plan for what we will do different tomorrow to overcome and what we need to pray about in the morning. As the morning is the time for dressing and preparing for the day’s work, the evening is the time to unload and find our rest in Jesus.
I haven’t read the entire book yet and I don’t know if I will find the time too. I’m already trying to finish 3 books as it is and my TBR pile has really grown quiet outrageously high. If you would like to read the full book, you can read it online here at Grace Gems.
RULES FOR DAILY CONDUCT
For the government of the conduct, the following rules are important—
1. Make the word of God the rule of all you do.
2. Whatever you do, do it in the strength of Christ. Without Christ, you can do nothing. Of yourself, you cannot even think a good thought; but you may do all things, through Christ strengthening you. Nature is a dry root—no gracious actions spring from it. Grace depends on continual supplies from Christ, as of sap from the root, or heat from the sun. Be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might, and then nothing shall be too hard for you. Mountains shall melt to plains, and valleys be filled up. All things are possible to him that believes and relies upon Christ’s power.
3. As we are to act by the power of Christ, so we are to present our services for acceptance in the name of Christ. The best we can do, needs his intercession, blood, and merits, to render it acceptable to God. In the Lord alone—we have righteousness and strength.
4. Whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. Selfishness is the natural idolatry of the human heart. The design and tendency of piety is to take the heart off self—and set it upon God. That duty which does not begin and end with God is no part of godliness. Self must be entirely cast down—and God alone exalted.
5. To spend every day well, let your waking thoughts be with God; let your fervent prayers ascend in the name of Christ; let the word of God be your counselor; let the fear of God be always before your eyes. In all your actions, let integrity and uprightness preserve you, as those who wait on God. Set a watch over your lips, and a guard upon your spirit, that you be not provoked to anger, nor speak unadvisedly with your lips.
6. At night, review the actions of the day. Give to God the glory of what has been good; take shame to yourself for what has been evil. Review the dispensations of God’s providences, and consider their special meaning and application. Acknowledge the mercies of God received through the day. Submit to the afflictions laid upon you. Desire a fresh application to your conscience of the blood of sprinkling; and commit yourselves afresh to the mercy and protection of God, through Jesus Christ; that you may be preserved through the slumbers of the night, and be permitted to wake in peace, whether it be in earth or heaven.
By these points let every action be examined—
- By whose rule have I acted?
- In whose strength have I acted?
- In whose name have I acted?
- For whose glory have I acted?
- What faith, humility, self-denial, love to God and Christ, have there been in my actions?
