What is Christianity Wiki

Jump to: navigation, search

3 SATURDAY MORNING.

3 SATURDAY MORNING.

Preserved by Your tender care, we live to see, most gracious Lord, the opening hours of another day. Increase and multiply upon us, Your mercy. Your goodness to us has never failed. Past provocations have been no barrier to its constant flow. Your nature and Your name is love .

Through the helpless hours of darkness, You have kept us safe. Helpless in ourselves, we meet this dawning light. But we come to You for help in the name of Jesus. We cling to Your protecting arm. We hide ourselves in You—our fortress and our sure refuge. We take You as our shield and buckler. Fight for us—and our foes must flee. Uphold us—and we cannot fall. Strengthen us—and we shall stand unmoved, immovable. Equip us with the whole armor of God—and we shall receive no wound. Stand by us in the conflict—and we shall tread Satan beneath our feet. Save us—and we shall be saved. Put the song of salvation on our lips—and our mouths shall shout aloud Your praise.

Especially we beseech You to deepen in our hearts, the abhorrence of all evil. May we hate sin with perfect hatred. It is the vile monster which defies Your power, casts off Your yoke, treads down Your lovely law, defiles our nature, spreads misery throughout this earth, brought death into the world, and nailed the spotless Lamb of God to the accursed tree. Teach us to look to Jesus on the cross—and so to estimate its loathsome guilt in Your sight.

Could there be no pardon—but through Your dear Son's death! Could no cleansing wash out its filth—but Jesus' precious blood! Could no atonement expiate the evil—but the shame, the agony, the bruises of the incarnate God! We see the boundless price! May we read therein the boundless guilt! In the infinite payment— show us the infinite debt . Thus may we discern the deadly viper in its real malignity, and tear it with holy indignation from our breasts, and resolutely turn from its every snare, and refuse to hold polluting dalliance with it!

Help us, too, to learn in Your all-sufficient sacrifice—Your tender and immeasurable love. May such love kindle mightily the flame of our responding love. May it blaze in our every faculty of heart and soul. May it rule throughout our inner man. May it consecrate our every thought and word and work a whole burnt-offering to Your glory.

Blessed Jesus, at Your cross may we be taught the awful miseries from which You have redeemed us! Without Your rescuing blood we must have been lost forever! Help us to ponder what the word "lost" implies. Your warning Word ofttimes draws back the veil. Send down Your enlightening Spirit to make vivid, the appalling scene. And when we read of fire which never ceases to burn, and indignation and wrath and anguish forever raging, and blackness of darkness forever, and everlasting destruction from Your presence and glory—may we cling more closely to Your cross! May our faith adhere to You with a more resolute and more intense grasp; may our total being be devoted to You; and may our detestation of all sin be as strong as Your love towards us. Work in us, we beg You, this transforming work. Keep us from all iniquity. Purify us unto Yourself, as a holy people. May holiness be the atmosphere in which we live.

Smile too on our beloved country, from the sovereign on the throne to the lowliest cottager, with blessings from on high. Diffuse Your knowledge. Establish the reign of Your faith and fear. Send out Your Spirit to put life into all our means of grace. Let our Bibles be duly studied, and may they vivify our hearts!

Give us intelligent gratitude for the marvelous blessings of our Reformation. Increase our valor for its glorious truths. Arm us with holy resolves never to relinquish our inestimable treasure . Check every backward look to Rome's destructive falsehoods . Hasten the time when the Lord himself shall appear to consume the mystery of iniquity with the breath of His mouth, and to destroy it with the brightness of His coming. We long for the day when truth shall be our unclouded sun, and when the deceits of idolatry shall be as a withered weed. We trust such prayer is Your Spirit's interceding voice within us. Therefore we boldly offer it in the prevailing name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Back to Family Prayers.