Always Remember From Whence God Has Brought You

I love the letter that an old Puritan, Thomas Goodwin, wrote to his son.

"When I was threatening to become cold in my ministry, and when I felt Sabbath morning coming and my heart not filled with amazement at the grace of God, or when I was making ready to dispense the Lord’s Supper, do you know what I used to do? I used to take a turn up and down among the sins of my past life, and I always came down again with a broken and a contrite heart, ready to preach, as it was preached in the beginning, the forgiveness of sins. I do not think I ever went up the pulpit stair that I did not stop for a moment at the foot of it and take a turn up and down among the sins of my past years. I do not think that I ever planned a sermon that I did not take a turn round my study table and look back at the sins of my youth and of all my life down to the present; and many a Sabbath morning, when my soul had been cold and dry, for the lack of prayer during the week, a turn up and down in my past life before I went into the pulpit always broke my hard heart and made me close with the gospel for my own soul before I began to preach.” [Quoted in William Barclay, The Letters to Timothy, Titus, and Philemon (Edinburgh: The Saint Andrews Press, 1960), 53-54.]

"Lord, help me to never forget where you brought me from and where You are taking me. Thank You, Jesus, for saving me from my sins and switching me from the broad road toward hell to the narrow road toward heaven. I feel like a turtle on a fence post: I know I didn't get here by myself. "But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain . . . ." (1 Corinthians 15:10) Amen."