Prayer XCII
O Lord, Who art the God of our salvation, we thank Thee that a man may be called the Friend of God. We beseech Thee to help us to make that name ours as it was Thy servants’ of old. When we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more being friends we shall be saved by His light. Help us, drawing near to Thee now, to come with loving hearts, with frank confidence. May there be no dread of Thee in any corner of our thoughts or feelings. May there be reverence for Him throughout our whole being. We bless Thee that the High and the lowly, God and we, can come together. Thou art our Friend; we are Thine. The Lord shall be to us a God, and we will be to Him a people. May we possess Thee and be possessed by Thee, and so possess ourselves.
We thank Thee, O Lord, that we can come to Thee with such peaceful confidence and quiet hearts and we beseech Thee to help us to pass beyond all thoughts of ourselves, and to enter into the great liberty and blessedness of losing ourselves in Thee. Not by the works of righteousness which we have done, but by Thy mercy, Thou hast saved us. And we come content and thankful to owe everything to Thy gracious heart, and pray Thee that Thou wouldst give us what we can never earn, the light that never dies. Cleanse us from all our death in life, from all our separation from Thee, in will and thought and deed. May we more and more have Thee with us in our work, and in us in our spirits. May we live the lives that we live in the flesh by the faith of the Son of God Who loved us. May we walk not only before Thee, as ever in our great Taskmaster’s eye, but as companioned by our heavenly Friend. And may we walk after Thee, as directed by our heavenly Guide.
We beseech Thee to accept us as we bring our supplications now, and to help us to remember all the reasons which this day preaches to us for thankfulness and confidence. We praise Thee for a risen Christ, our Brother and our Forerunner, Who is even at the right hand of God, and has gone in to prepare a place for us. We thank Thee for our Advocate before the Throne; that our cause is wrapped up in Christ’s, and that it cannot be that the Head and the members can be parted in destiny and blessedness.
Thou hast often drawn near to us and spoken to our hearts in past times in our worship here. So we pray Thee that it may be again; that our weakness may be strengthened and our sadness lifted up and changed into joy in the Lord, and all our waywardness corrected, and our wills subdued, and our whole nature bettered and quickened and made more Christlike and more God-pleasing by our service this morning. Accept our thanks for every mercy Thou hast bestowed upon us, and be near us still, for our hope is in Thee. And we bring to Thee empty hearts and hands to be filled with Thy blessings, and many demerits to be forgiven by Thy love.
Hear us, we beseech Thee; accept and answer us now, for our Lord Christ’s sake.