Wednesday 15 May 2013

Calvin's rules of prayer

# that we be disposed in mind and heart as befits those who enter conversation with God
# that in our petitions we ever sense our own insufficiency, and earnestly pondering how we need all that we seek, join with this prayer an earnest - nay, burning - desire to attain it
# that anyone who stands before God to pray, in his humility giving glory to God, abandon all thought of his own glory
# cast down and overcome by true humility, we should nonetheless be encouraged to pray by a sure hope that our prayer will be answered
John Calvin, Institutes 3.20

These make sense today as they did in the 16th century - and may stand as a corrctive to our sometimes sloppy attitude towards God and our spiritual discipline of prayer.

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