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THE
LOVE WITHOUT MEASURE OR END.
LORD,
we would come to Thee, but do Thou come to us. Draw us and we
will
run after Thee. Blessed Spirit, help our infirmities, for we know not what
we should pray for as we ought. Come, Holy Spirit, and give right thoughts
and right utterance that we may all be able to pray in the common prayer,
the whole company feeling that for each one there is a portion. We are
grateful as we remember that if the minister in the sanctuary should not
be able to pray for any one of us there is One who bears the names of all
His redeemed upon His breast, and upon His shoulder, who will take care
with the love of His heart and the power of His hand to maintain the cause
of all His own.
Dear
Savior, we put ourselves under Thy sacred patronage. Advocate with the
Father, plead for us this day, yea, make intercession for the
transgressors. We desire to praise the name of the Lord with our whole
heart, so many of us as have tasted that the Lord is gracious. Truly Thou
hast delivered us from the gulf of dark despair, wherein we wretched
sinners lay. Thou hast brought us up also out of the horrible pit and out
of the miry clay, Thou hast set our feet upon a rock, and the new song
which Thou hast put into our mouths we would not stifle, but we would
bless the Lord whose mercy endureth for ever.
We
thank Thee, Lord, for the love without beginning which chose us or ever
the earth was, for the love without measure which entered into covenant
for our redemption, for the love without failure which in due time
appeared in the person of Christ and wrought out our redemption, for that
love which has never changed, though we have wandered; that love which
abideth faithful even when we are unfaithful.
O
God, we praise Thee for keeping us till this day, and for the full
assurance that Thou wilt never let us go. Some can say, “He restoreth my
soul,” they had wandered, wandered sadly, but Thou hast brought them
back again. Bless the Lord, our inmost soul blesses the
Lord. Blessed be the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the Triune;
blessed be the Lord for every office sustained by each divine person, and
for the divine blessing which has come streaming down to us through each
one of those, condescending titles worn by the Father, Son, and the Holy
Spirit.
We
feel like singing all the time; we would take down our harp from the
willows, if we had hung it there, and we would waken every string to the
sweetest melody of praise unto the Lord our God. Yet, Lord, we cannot
close with praise, for we are obliged to come before Thee with humble
confession of sin. We are not worthy of the least of all these favors; we
cannot say, “He is worthy for whom Thou shouldst do this thing,” nay,
but we are altogether unworthy, and Thy gifts are according to the riches
of Thy grace, for which again we praise Thee.
Lord,
forgive us all our sin. May Thy pardoned ones have a renewed sense of
their acceptance in the Beloved. If any cloud has arisen to hide Thee from
any believing eye, take that cloud away. If in our march through this
world, so full of mire as it is, we have any spot on us, dear Savior, wash
our feet with that blessed foot-bath, and then say to us, “Ye are clean
every whit.” May we know it so, that there is no condemnation, no
separation; sin is removed as to its separating as well as its destroying
power, and may we enter into full fellowship with God. May we walk in the
light as God is in the light, and have fellowship with Him, while the
blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin. Let no child of
Thine have any dead work upon his conscience, and may our conscience be
purged from dead works to serve the living and true God.
And
oh! if there are any that after having made the profession of religion
have gone astray by any form of sin, Lord, restore them. If they have
fallen by strong drink, if they have fallen by unchastity, if they have
fallen by dishonesty; if, in any way, they have stained their garments,
Oh! that Thy mighty grace might bring them back and put them yet among the
children. But give them not up, set them not as Admah, make them not as
Zeboim, but let Thy repentings be kindled and Thy bowels of compassion be
moved for them, and let them also be moved, and may they return with
weeping and with supplication, and find Thee a God ready to pardon.
Furthermore,
we ask of Thee, our Father, this day to perfect Thy work within our
hearts. We are saved, but we would be saved from sin of every form and
degree; from sins that lie within, and we are scarcely aware that they are
there. If we have any pride of which we are not conscious, any unbelief of
which we are not aware, if there is a clinging to the creature, a form of
idolatry which we have not yet perceived, we pray Thee, Lord, to search us
as with candles till Thou dost spy out the evil and then put it away. We
are not satisfied with pardoned sin, “We pray, create in me a clean
heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” Help us in our daily
life, in our families, in our relations as husbands or wives, parents; or
children, masters or servants, in our business transactions with our
fellow men, in our dealings with the Church of God, may we be true,
upright, pure; kept from the great transgression because we are kept from
the minor.
Oh!
that we may be such as glorify Christ. Save us, we pray Thee, from the
common religion; give us the peculiar grace of a peculiar people. May we
abide in Christ, may we live near to God. Let not the frivolities of the
world have any power over us whatever. May we be too full grown in grace
to be bewitched with the toys which are only becoming in children.
Oh!
give us to serve Thee, and especially, and this prayer we have already
prayed but we pray it again, make us useful in the salvation of our fellow
man. O Lord, have we lived so long in the world and yet are our children
unconverted? May we never rest until they are truly saved. Have we been
going up and down in business, and are those round about us as yet unaware
of our Christian character? Have we never spoken to them the Word of Life?
Lord, arouse us to a deep concern for all with whom we come in contact
from day to day. Make us all missionaries at home or in the street, or in
our workshop, wherever Providence has cast our lot, may we there shine as
lights in the world.
Lord,
keep us right, true in doctrine, true in experience, true in life, true in
word, true in deed. Let us have an intense agony of spirit concerning the
many who are going down to the everlasting fire of which our Master
spoke. Lord, save them! LORD,
SAVE THEM!
Stay, we pray Thee, the
torrents of sin that run down the streets of London; purge the dead sea of
sin, in which so many of the heathen are lying asoak. Oh! that the day
were come when the name of Jesus shall be a household word, when everybody
knew of His love, and of His death, and of His blood, and of its cleansing
power. Lord, save men, gather out the company of the redeemed people; let
those whom the Father gave to Christ be brought out from among the ruins
of the fall to be His joy and crown. “Let the people praise Thee, O God,
yea, let all the people praise Thee.” Let the ends of the earth fear Him
who died to save them. Let the whole earth be filled with the glory of
God.
This
is our great prayer, and we crown it with this: Come, Lord Jesus, come
Lord and tarry not. Come in the fullness of Thy power and the splendor of
Thy glory! Come quickly, even so come quickly; Lord Jesus.
Amen.
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TO
BE LIKE CHRIST.
BLESSED
art
Thou, O God; teach us Thy statutes! Because Thou art the
infinitely
blessed One, Thou canst impart blessing, and Thou art infinitely
willing
to do so, and therefore do we approach Thee with great confidence,
through
Jesus Christ Thy Son, whom Thou hast made blessed for evermore.
Oh!
hear Thou the voice of Thy servants this day, and according to Thine infinite
love and wisdom answer Thou us; according to Thy riches in glory,
by
Christ Jesus.
First
we would confess before Thee, O God, the sin we have committed,
mourning
over it. Touch each one’s heart now with tenderness that
everyone
of us may lament that Thou shouldst even have a few things
against
us, if they be but few, for in the great love of our blessed Master
He
said to His churches, “Nevertheless, I have a few things against
Thee.”
O
Lord, if Thou hast so kept us by Thy grace that there have been but a few
things against us, yet help us to bewail them much. O, Infinite Love,
can
we sin against Thee at all? How debased is our nature then! Forgive,
sweet
Savior, forgive sins against Thy love and blood, against Thy wounds
and
death, and give us Thy Spirit, O Savior, more fully, that we may live
Thy
life while we are here among the sons of men, for as Thou art, even so
also
are we in this world, and we wish the parallel to become more close
and
perfect every day!
Forgive
those who have never felt the guilt of sin, who are living in it, who
are
carnally minded, who are therefore dead. O, quicken by Thy divine
Spirit;
take away the pleasure which they feel in sin; deliver them from
being
the bond slaves of it. Alas! we know the sorrow of sometimes being
captured
by it, but still we are not yet slaves. The Spirit, the life of God, in
Jesus
Christ, hath made us free from the law of sin and death. O, deliver
others;
bring them up out of the horrible pit of sin. Deliver them from the
death
of their natures and save them by the Spirit of the living God, and
apply the precious blood of Jesus to their hearts and
consciences.
And,
Lord, hear us who are Thy children, in whom the Spirit beareth
witness
with our spirit, that we are the children of God. Hear us while we
bring
before Thee our daily struggles. Blessed be Thy name; there are some
sins
which Thou hast helped us to overcome, and now they are trodden
beneath
our feet with many a tear that we ever should have been in
bondage
to them. And O! there are rebellions within our nature still. We
think
that we are getting holy, and behold we discover that we are under
the
power of pride, that we are self-conceited about ourselves. Lord help
us
to master pride.
And
then when we try to be humble before Thee we find ourselves falling
into
inaction and supineness. Lord, slay sloth within us, and never let us
find
a pillow in the doctrines of grace for ease while yet a single sin
remains.
Besides, great God, the raging lusts of the flesh will sometimes
pounce
upon us like wild beasts. Help us to be very watchful lest by any
means
we be torn and rent by them. O keep us, we beseech Thee, Lord, for
without
Thy keeping we cannot keep ourselves.
Alas!
we are even sometimes subject to unbelief. If trials come which we
expected
not, or if the body grows faint, how liable we are to begin to
doubt
the faithful promise, and so to grieve the Holy Spirit. Lord, we
cannot
bear this; we cannot bear this; it is not enough for us that our
garments
are clean, and that we walk uprightly before men; we long to
walk before Thee in such a way that there will be nothing to grieve Thy
Spirit,
nothing to vex the tender love of our Beloved. O, come, Divine
Spirit,
and exercise Thy cleansing power upon it according to Thy promise,
“I
will cleanse Thy blood which I have not cleansed, saith the Lord, that
dwelleth
in Zion.”
O
that everything might help us towards purity, for we crave after it; we mind
the things of the Spirit, and there is groaning within us to be utterly
delivered
from the things of the flesh, that we may in spirit, soul, and body,
be
a cleansed temple fit for the indwelling of the Holy One of Israel. Lord
help
us, we pray Thee, in our daily life, to be as Christ was. If we are men
of
sorrows, may there be that luster about our sorrow which there was
about
His in patience and holly submission to the Divine law. If we are men
of
activity may our activity be like His, for he “went about doing good.”
May
we seek in all ways the good of our fellow-men and the glory of our
God.
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