Let me listen, daily, hourly, to the divine admonition–“Walk in the Spirit and you shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh.” How many venture to walk–but it is to walk dangerously near the precipice straying on doubtful or forbidden ground; with a faltering will; holding parley with sin; tampering with the sensitiveness of conscience and with the treacherous allurements and base compliances of the world; thus “grieving the Holy Spirit of God, whereby we are sealed unto the day of redemption.”

Lord, bring me to live more and more constantly under the sovereignty of that lofty motive to walk and act so as to please You; to exercise a jealous scrutiny over my truant, treacherous, deceitful heart. Specially in my daily business and daily duties and daily temptations and daily perplexities, may I seek to be led by Your Spirit. Let me keep free of whatever influences would deflect the needle from its pole, and prevent the love of God from being shed abroad in my heart by the Holy Spirit given unto me. Beholding, as in a glass, the glory of the Lord, may I be changed into the same image from glory to glory, by the Lord the Spirit (2 Cor. 3;18). Free from the bondage of the law–the law of sin and death, let me become a willing slave to the new bondage of Christ’s service. Recognizing the ultimate end of Redemption to be Sanctification, may I yield myself and my members servants to righteousness unto holiness (Rom. 6;19).

– John MacDuff

From PAUL’S SONG OF SONGS
A devotional exposition of Romans 8