LORD JESUS CHRIST, Subdue This Demon Of PRIDE!

Instead of lodging the lion 

and the leopard and the wolf!

(Alexander Smellie, "The Secret Place" 1907)

"With authority HE commands even
 the unclean spirits, and they obey HIM!"
Mark 1:27

No word of the Gospel sounds more gladsomely

in my ears than this. For the unclean spirits 

have invaded the citadel of my soul, and

asserted their hateful domination over me.

I have no strength to drive them out--

but, my LORD, YOU can rescue me from

their hideous craft and polluting bondage!

Every deadly sin may be defeated by

the virtue of YOUR Cross, and

the omnipotence of YOUR SPIRIT.

There is what Dante calls the hungry 

lion of Pride. In my pride . . .

  I claim a false superiority,

  I exalt myself arrogantly and unreasonably,

  I am never satisfied,

  I am never content with the honor

I receive. Always I am clamoring for more,

and more, and more.

LORD JESUS CHRIST, 

subdue this demon of PRIDE! 

Then there is what Dante calls the spotted 

leopard of Sensuality. It is not simply

in my hot youth that I give harborage

to corrupting imaginations, which sink

me beneath my true dignity.

They are horribly persistent.

They follow me into my riper age.

Again and again they reappear.

A story in the newspaper makes

them recur, or a too suggestive picture,

or an impure word which I overhear

as I hurry along the street.

Wrestle, O CHRIST, with the spotted 

leopard in me, and kill him outright! 

Forsake me not, until my hidden

thoughts are as sinless as YOUR own.

And there is what Dante calls the famished 

wolf of Covetousness. I crave money, crave

it with a hunger which refuses to be appeased.

If I have managed to secure a little gain, and

am of some account in the social sphere--

I am full of eagerness to add to my store.

If I am poor, I am discontented, and forever

scheming and toiling for more money.

LORD JESUS, when YOU were here,

YOU had nothing of the world's riches--

and yet YOUR heart lacked for no good

thing. Without wallet or purse, YOU were

crowned with the love of the FATHER

and the fullness of the SPIRIT.

Teach me YOUR secret, and let the wolf 

of Covetousness be slain too.

YOU are all I want. Come to me, and dwell

patiently and victoriously within me--

until I am holy as YOU are holy. Then,

instead of lodging the lion and 

the leopard and the wolf, and many 

another unclean and loathly beast--

I shall be conformed to the Lamb and the Dove!

  ~  ~  ~  ~ 

GraceGems has published John Newton's 2 page letter,
"When we see the world in flames!"