11 Christ-Saturated Resolutions

An Able and Faithful Ministry

Garretson’s An Able and Faithful Ministry continues to be a surprising feast for the soul. There is a warmth of piety in Samuel Miller’s life that’s beautiful to behold.

Garretson says, “The life of piety for which he was so well known was nurtured in the quiet recesses of his soul through Bible reading, prayer, the sacraments, Sabbath-keeping, and a lifetime of regular fasting.” To see the man’s earnest pursuit of godliness we turn to a diary entry on New Year’s Day 1832, in he wrote,

I would this day make a new and unreserved dedication of myself, with all I have and am, to Christ. I would resolve (Oh that I may have grace given me to make the resolution with unfeigned sincerity and humility, and to keep it faithfully) to be henceforth more devoted to Christ than I have ever yet been.

11 RESOLUTIONS

  1. To be more careful in improving my time than heretofore; and, for this purpose, to avoid all useless reading, and every kind of employment, which does not appear adapted to promote the Redeemer’s kingdom.
  2. To ask daily, “Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?” and to seek to know my duty, whatever labor or self-denial it may cost me.
  3. To be still more careful than heretofore in regard to my diet; guarding against every kind of excess; and endeavoring to eat and drink, not to gratify the flesh, but to glorify God, and to prepare me more effectually and comfortably to do his work.
  4. That I will try to be more plain, faithful and pointed in all my preaching.
  5. That I will strive and pray to be enabled to make a more hallowed and salutary impression on the students of the Seminary. Alas, that I have not set them a more deeply spiritual example!
  6. That I will direct more attention than ever to the eternal interests of my children.
  7. That I will try to make every conversation, in which I shall engage, during the year on which I have entered, as useful as possible.
  8. That I will direct more attention than I have ever yet done to the precious cause of missions, foreign and domestic.
  9. That I will endeavor to profit more by the deeply spiritual and admirable example of my wife, (for the gift of whom I have reason forever to praise God,) during the coming year, than I have ever yet done.
  10. That I will hereafter, as God shall enable me, endeavor to make all my rides and journeys subservient to the best interests of my fellow men.
  11. That I will hereafter endeavor, in all things to regard myself as a consecrated man; as not my own; and as bound unreservedly and forever to be devoted to the glory of God.O thou God of all grace! Let not these resolutions be insincere or transient; but may they be adopted in the fear of the Lord, under a due sense of my own exceeding weakness, and with an humble dependence on they grace for strength to keep them! May the Holy Spirit help me! May thy grace fill my heart!

Two words come to mind: Stirring. Convicting. How about you?