Prayer XXXI
O Lord, Thou art good and ready to forgive and plenteous in mercy to all that call upon Thee. So we come to Thee, claiming our portion in these great blessings which flow to men from Thy goodness and readiness to pardon, and abundance in mercy for all. Help us, we beseech Thee, in the depths of our hearts and not merely with our tongues, to call upon Thee. We bless Thee that Thou hast taught us Thy Name, and that we speak not to an unknown power, but to the God and Father of us, because the God and Father of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Help us, O God, we beseech Thee, then, to draw near to Thee like children, loving, trusting, not afraid, and feeling the blessedness that the good hand of the good Father is upon us for good. We look back upon ourselves, and our past, and we come with all its imperfections and our stains, and beseech Thee that Thou wouldst turn away our hearts from vanities, and wouldst help us day by day, with increasing decision, concentration, and success, to war against our own evil, and to make our own the large blessings which Thou hast sent for the world in Thy spirit of holiness.
Help us, we pray Thee, Lord, that we may indeed be Thy servants, devoted to Thee, calling upon Thee, and trusting in Thee, and living according to Thy commandments. And then give us, we pray Thee, all the blessings which then we shall be fit to receive, and bestow upon us larger and constantly increasing gifts of Thy grace and mercy. We need Thy pardoning love; we thank Thee that we can believe that before we call Thou dost answer, and that Thou art in Christ reconciling the world to Thyself, not imputing unto them their trespasses.
O Lord! help each of us rightly to understand our need of a pardoning God, and joyfully to accept the pardon which Thou dost send us. We pray that none of us may cling to our evil, and none of us bear about with us consciences either speaking reproach or dumb seers, but that they may testify for us, having received from Thyself the assurance that Thou art pacified towards us, for all that we have done. And, O Lord, surely we need more than forgiveness. We wish, when we are wisest, to be set free from the dissensions and the dominion of our own evil, and to be strengthened to resist the manifold temptations which our weakness finds even in Thy best gifts.
O Lord, help us, we pray Thee, drawing ever nearer to Thyself, to be ever further away from the desire to transgress Thy loved will. And may it seem to us more and more to be sweeter to be in harmony with Thy purposes, and to yield ourselves to Thee — be sweeter than any other sweetness that the world can give. We have had enough of trial to drink from bitter streams. We pray Thee that we may treasure in our inmost convictions the assurance that it is a bitter, as well as an evil, thing to sin against the living, loving God, and may carry with us that conviction when we need it most — when fiery temptations assail us, and our own weakness is ready to surrender; then we pray Thee come to us and help us. Set our feet upon the rock, and establish our goings, and may we become capable of receiving such sustained strength because we have a wholesome and wise distrust of our own. It is when we say that our feet had well-nigh gone that Thou dost stretch out Thine hand to hold us up.
This morning we beseech Thee to look upon us as we gather together professing to seek Thy face. May it be our real purpose when we come together thus, and whatever other motives may have their right place in drawing us together now, grant, we beseech Thee, that high above them all, and more conscious to ourselves than any of them, may be the wish that our fainting good may be strengthened, and our spirits, wearied and worn with contact with the world through another week, may once again receive food for many days, in the strength of which we may go forth again to-morrow to our tasks.
We beseech Thee to be very near each of us in our worship. We thank Thee for that great truth commemorated by all Thy people this day, the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, in which all our death both of body and of spirit is abolished, and in which life and immortality, life here, life in union with God, life hereafter in blessedness for evermore, are sealed and certified to faithful souls. May we each enter into all the joy and the power of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. And may we too, in our measure and degree, reckon ourselves also to be dead indeed unto sin and alive to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. In Him we pray Thee to accept all our petitions.