For Sanctifying Grace
“I am the Lord tJiat doth sanctify you.” — Exq-d. xxxi. 13.
Most blessed God, Thou hast permitted me in Thy great goodness to see the light of another day. May I be enabled to receive every returning morning as a fresh token of Thy love — a renewal of my lease of existence — a fresh grant of mercy from the Author of all being. May I seek, this day, and every day, to consecrate the life spared by Thy bounty more and more to Thy praise.
Lord, I come anew with my burden of sin.
It is Thy marvellous forbearance that does
not make every succeeding morning my last.
I bless Thee that there is still the cleansing
blood, the “Wonderful Counsellor,” the all- 2* gracious Spirit. Give me to know, ere I go forth into the world, what it is to have the sense of Thy reconciled love. Whether in public or in private, in the intercourse of life or in the seclusion of solitude, may I realize Thy presence. May it be to me the sweetest and most blessed of all thoughts, that a covenant God is “compassing my path” — that by Him I am defended, guided, supported — safe!
Heavenly Father, it is the unholiness of my heart which mars the joys of my communion with Thee. It is my especial prayer that Thou mayest impart largely to me of the sanctifying influences of Thy grace and Spirit. Let sin be crucified more and more. Let self be subjugated more and more. Under the transforming power of new affections, may God become all in all. May it be mine to know, in growing experience, the happiness of true holiness. May I jealously avoid all that is likely to estrange me from Thee, and zealously cultivate all that is calculated to
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draw me nearer towards Thee. “Thy favor is life” — O show me that to lose Thy favor is death indeed!
This blessed work of inward sanctification is Thine. Alas! I feel my constant proneness to wander from Thee, and to seek my happiness in the perishable. My best resolutions, how frail! my warmest affections, how languid and lukewarm! my hoKest moments, how distracted with vain thoughts and worldly cares! — my whole life, how stained with sin! But do Thou strengthen me with all might, by Thy Spirit, in the inner man. My daily cry would be, “More grace! more grace!” There is no sufficiency in myself; but hast Thou not promised to make Thy grace sufficient? May I make it my grand ambition to be marking, day by day, my Zionward progress — my growing conformity to the holy character of a holy God.
For this end, overrule all the dispensations of Thy providence. May I hear a voice in each of them proclaiming, “Be holy.” May
I be led to bear them all, and to rejoice in them all, if they thus be the means of l3ringing me nearer Thyself.
I commend to Thy fatherly protection all my beloved friends, and all for whom I ought to pray. “Sanctify them through Thy truth.” May they all be presented unblamable before Thee in the day of Christ’s appearing.
And may the grace of the Lord Jesus and the love of God, and the communion and fellowship of the Holy Ghost, be with me now and ever. Amen.
“cause MK to hear thy LOVma-KINDNESS IN THE MORNING, FOR IN THEE DO I TRUST.”