# “I want to live with Him day by day” by John Newton

- Link: https://tollelege.net/2023/09/18/i-want-to-live-with-him-day-by-day-by-john-newton/
- Published: 2023-09-18T12:00:35-05:00
- Author: tollelege

“I hope your soul prospers.

I do not ask you if you are always filled with sensible comfort: but do you find
your spirit more bowed down to the feet and will of Jesus, so as to be willing to
serve Him for the sake of serving Him, and to follow Him, as we say, through thick
and thin; to be willing to be anything or nothing, so that He may be glorified?

I could give you plenty of good advice upon this head; but I am ashamed to do it,
because I so poorly follow it myself.

I want to live with Him day by day, to do all for Him, to receive all from Him, 
to possess all in Him, to live all to Him, to make Him my hiding-place and my resting-
place.

I want to deliver up that rebel Self to him in chains; but the rogue, like Proteus,
puts on so many forms, that he slips through my fingers.

But I think I know what I would do if I could fairly catch him.

My soul is like a besieged city: a legion of enemies without the gates, and a nest
of restless traitors within, that hold a correspondence with them without; so that
I am deceived and counteracted continually.

It is a mercy that I have not been surprised and overwhelmed long ago: without help
from on high it would soon be over with me.

How often have I been forced to cry out, O God, the heathen are got into thine inheritance;
thy holy temple have they defiled, and defaced all thy work!

Indeed it is a miracle that I still hold out.

I trust, however, I shall be supported to the end, and that my Lord will at length
raise the siege, and cause me to shout deliverance and victory.

Pray for me, that my walls may be strengthened and wounds healed.”

–John Newton, [_The Works of John Newton_](https://www.amazon.com/dp/1848715110?tag=toletaupanre-20),
[_Volume 2_](https://www.amazon.com/dp/1848715110?tag=toletaupanre-20) (Carlisle,
PA: Banner of Truth, 1988), 2: 122-123.

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## Comments

### By: reubenhuffman

- Link: https://tollelege.net/2023/09/18/i-want-to-live-with-him-day-by-day-by-john-newton/comment-page-1/#comment-29956
- Published: 2023-09-18T12:07:19-05:00

Wow, that’s good. Thank God for the words of John Newton. I’ve often considered 
how the picture of the human heart is seen in the verbal attack on Jerusalem by 
the Rabshakeh in Isaiah 36…and how the people (for once) did the right thing and
obeyed their king and didn’t even hold a discussion with the enemy.