God: "I looked for someone to take a stand for me, and stand in the gap" (Ezekiel 22:30)
We must reject our well-meaning but misguided spiritual determinism. As it turns out, it doesn’t all depend on us. The Bible is full of examples of spiritual giants producing rascally children and noble kin coming from polluted loins. While the proverbial wisdom of Scripture (Prov. 22: 6) and the promises of the covenant (Gen. 17: 7) tell us that good Christian parents and good Christian children normally go together, we must concede that God is sovereign (Rom. 9: 6– 18), salvation is a gift (Eph. 2: 8– 9), and the wind of the Spirit blows where it wishes (John 3: 8).
Nourish right conceptions of the majesty of God in your minds. Let us consider that we are drawing to God, the most amiable object, the best of beings, worthy of infinite honor, and highly meriting the highest affections we can give; a God that made the world by a word, that upholds the great frame of heaven and earth; a Majesty above the conceptions of angels; who uses not His power to strike us our deserved punishment, but His love and bounty to allure us; a God that gave all creatures to serve us, and can, in a trice, make them as much our enemies as he hath now made them our servants. Let us view Him in His greatness, and in His goodness, that our hearts may have a true value of the worship of so great a majesty, and count it the most worthy employment with all diligence to attend upon Him.
