Status Updates From Holy Helps for a Godly Life...

“Scripture [ascribes] to faith alone the victory that has overcome the world and its deceits (1 John 5:4)… And our Savior says, "All things are possible to him that believeth" (Mark 9:23). For all things which we desire are not only possible but easy, since we have a promise from God upon which we firmly rest.”

Resting on his promises. No striving is needed to obtain what our souls desire.

Excellent chapters on the armor of God.

“He who learns to put on this armor and go clothed in it throughout the day will find that everything God has spoken, as I have here written, is true. For the devil flees the one who resists him and has fastened to his soul these pieces of armor. Therefore, the depth and subtlety of hell will not prevail against him.”

This is one of the earliest books on spiritual disciplines from the protestant perspective. Some solid helps here but also a lot of tautologies.

“If someone asks how can men daily repeat the same form of words… I answer that it is not frequently praying for the same thing that is odious to God, but when this is done with an irreverent, unprepared, and corrupt heart…”

He compares it to singing the Psalms and praying the Lord’s Prayer.

If Christ then has the power of renewing him – which is signified and signed by baptism (namely, the power of Christ’s death mortifying sin, and the virtue of his resurrection in raising him up to a new life) – is not baptism throughout his life, as often as he seriously considers it, a powerful means to help him forward in a Christian life?