Day 39

Let every Christian, then, take courage, and never despair of his salvation.

1 Matt. xxi. 21, 22 .

[ i*7 ] fortieth ©a> Perseverance and humility in prayer . — Matt. vii. 7, 8 ; Luke xi. 5, 6, seq .

[NOCK’ : — persevere in knocking, even to the extent of making yourself troublesome, if that were possible. There is a way of forcing God, and of wresting graces from His hand ; and this way is to go on asking without intermission, but with firm faith ; which is made clear by the Gospel assurance : ‘ Ask, and it shall be given you ; seek, and you shall find ; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.’ And the same promise is repeated in a varying form: — ‘For everyone that asketh, receiveth ; and he that seeketh, findeth ; and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened.* We must pray, then, by day and night — and when we wake in the night ; and though God may seem not to listen, or even to repel us, we must keep on ‘ knocking * : — expecting everything from Him,