Set apart Psalm 4:3

Matthew Henry says concerning the Psalms' There is no one book of scripture that is more helpful to the devotions of the saints than this, and it has been so in all ages of the church.' Over the next 30 days this blog will encourage daily reading of a few psalms morning and evening, accompanied by a devotional inspired by John Wesley's life,encouraging prayer for a national awakening ONCE AGAIN,in England.

•DAY 1 MORNING PSALM 1-5

•DAY 1 EVENING PSALM 6 - 8

‘With a shrewd flash inside John Wesley once said “If I were to write my own life I should begin it before I was born.” That was his typically realistic way of paying tribute to the past. Ancestry has its effect on personality and we cannot easily set aside Wesley’s family tree. His preparation for the work of evangelism, to which God had destined him, began long before he came into the world. Like the prophet Jeremiah, he was aware that the divine purpose stretched back to influence his antecedents. 'Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.'(Jeremiah 1:5) Referring to Wesley’s untiring ministry throughout the land, “What thrust him out on these ceaseless journeyings?” In a strict sense, “one could say ‘it was in his blood’". John Wesley’s father Samuel was an Anglican. John grew up in a rectory at Epworth. John Wesley’s mother Suzanna ‘was probably the dominant personality in the Epworth household. Samuel married her in 1688 and she brought with her a unique endowment. As the daughter of Doctor Annesley she inherited a rich tradition. She had grown up in a Puritan household where demanding educational standards accompanied disciplined devotional and moral teaching.’

‘Her carefully ordered timetable, her regular times SET APART for meditation and self-examination before God, her keeping of a spiritual journal or day-book, her observance of the strict Puritan Sabbath were all part of her ‘method’ of life to use the Puritan key-word which was current long before John Wesley began his work.” It is not too much to say, therefore that Wesley “absorbed Puritan influences with his mother’s milk. The Effect of this mingled Anglican and Puritan inheritance on John Wesley was marked. He remained a Church of England man to his dying day, with a strong sense of discipline and a desire to bring about reform within. His overriding concern was for the good of souls, and where existing church order stood in his way, he did not hesitate to lay it aside. The rebel under the skin would keep bursting through.

• In the foreword to John Mulinde’s ‘Set apart for God’ Charlie Cleverly, vicar of St Aldates, Oxford writes‘ I believe we need to see in the West every Christian an intercessor, in every home a prayer altar, every church become a house of prayer and in every town a city-wide prayer centre, but before all these we need people SET APART. Today we pray with the psalmist, Psalm 4:3 ‘the Lord has set apart the godly for himself’ Lord, you set John Wesley apart to be your vessel to see a national awakening unto revival in the eighteenth century, do it again Lord…. set your people apart for a national awakening today. Prepare me Lord.. SET ME APART LORD, I am here to do your will.

REFERENCES

Skevington-Wood, A. The burning heart John Wesley: Evangelist,Cliff College Publishing,19
Mulinde,J. Set Apart for God, Foreword,10