Matthew Henry – Prayers for personal revival

This page is in our Personal Revival collection.

 

In Psalm 119 there are 9 verses in the King James Version that say ‘quicken me‘. In the New American Standard Version, this is translated as ‘revive me‘.

Matthew Henry wrote a commentary on the bible in the early 1700’s. He also wrote prayers based on the ‘quicken me‘ verses in Psalm 119.

These prayers have been adapted and somewhat modernised by Nigel Paterson, who has been using these prayers in his devotions for some time now. You may find them helpful too.

They are on this page and there is a download here. 

The unbolded wording carries added explanations, taken from or referring to Henry’s commentary.

v25	My soul cleaves to the dust; Revive me according to Your word. By Your providence, Lord, please infuse more of Your life into my work, projects and other activities through Your word. By Your grace, put Your vigour into all my affections. Cure me from any spiritual deadness, and make me lively in my devotion to You. Please reveal to me, and help me put away, any spiritual darkness remaining in my life.
v37	Turn away my eyes from looking at vanity, And revive me in Your ways. Revive me so that I may redeem the time each day, making the most of the opportunities before me, pressing forwards and doing every task with liveliness and fervency of spirit. Please help me to discern what You consider to be vanity in our times and in my life, so that I don’t waste time or energy on such matters.
v40	Behold, I long for Your precepts; Revive me through Your righteousness. Revive me in Your ways, according to Your righteous promises. Please reveal to me new ways of what it means for me to live righteously, and help me then to walk in them.   Where God has worked to give us the will and wish to do things for Him, He will work to help us actually do them. Where he has created a specific desire for righteousness, He will satisfy it.
v88	Revive me according to Your lovingkindness, so that I may keep the testimony of Your mouth. Make me alive, and make me lively, so that I may vigorously keep to Your ways, however much they are denied and refused on earth. This implies that without such reviving we should not be able to keep sufficiently God’s ‘testimonies’ (paraphrased above as ‘ways, however much…’*). We cannot proceed, nor persevere, in the good way, unless God revives us, and puts life into us. We are, therefore, taught here to depend on the grace of God for strength to do every good work and to depend upon it as grace.    Matthew Henry had prayed before this Quicken me in Your righteousness (v.40) but here he prayed, in his words, Quicken me after Your lovingkindness. Some of the clearest evidence of God’s good will towards us is His good work in us.
v107	I am exceedingly afflicted; Revive me, O Lord, according to Your word. Make and keep me lively and cheerful. Revive me, even in the middle of afflictions, to greater diligence in Your work. Revive me and deliver me and others out of such afflictions in due time, which will be like giving me an added lease of life when that happens. Please give me such a revived life with which to serve you that it becomes more fully evident than has ever been seen until now.   The Psalmist pleads the promise of God, guides his desires by it, and grounds his hopes upon it. These words Revive me according to Your word mean that [as] he [had] resolved to perform his promises to God (v.106)… [he] therefore could, with humble boldness, beg of God to make good his word to him.
v149	Hear my voice according to Your lovingkindness. Revive me, O Lord, according to Your ordinances. Your loving kindness and ways revealed to me will help put added life into me. You know what I need, and what is good for me – and therefore what will revive me – so please put these things into my life through an enlarged understanding of You and the Scriptures.
v154	Plead my cause and redeem me; Revive me according to Your word.   The closer I get to You, oh God, as my rule and my support, the more assurance I can have of Your deliverance when I need it.
v156	Great are Your mercies, O Lord; Revive me according to Your ordinances.   I seek Your enlivening grace according to Your judgements and according to the whole nature of the New Covenant. Please help me to live it out in all its aspects and glory.   The New Covenant is that established rule by which God goes on dispensing his grace.
v159	Consider how I love Your precepts; Revive me, O Lord, according to Your lovingkindness.   Revive me in the vigorous performance of my obligations. Revive me and keep me alive and well, not according to any merit of mine, and though I love Your word, but according to Your lovingkindness. Revive me, please Lord, through any form of recovery that is needed at this time.   This petition is based on the psalmist’s love for God’s precepts. Happily, we need not desire to be revived any further than God’s lovingkindness will revive us.