"If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!" Matthew 7:11
And He said unto them, When you pray, say --
MY FATHER in heaven, I beg Your blessing, as I am once more on the threshold of a new day. May its duties and engagements be undertaken and pervaded with the gracious sense of Your nearness and favor. Dispel all fear; promote and strengthen all confidence in these assuring words of the great Redeemer. He has consecrated with a heavenly meaning, the most sacred tie and relationship of earth. The love of father to child is only the feeble image, Lord, of Your love to Your redeemed people. Parental gifts, bestowed with yearning affection, are only the pledges and emblems of a divine interest in us which knows no change, no decay. Loving Your own who are in the world, You love them unto the end. You have established Your faithfulness forever.
Impart unto me all these promised "good things" -- pardon, peace, justification, sanctification -- crowned and consummated with the hope of immortality. I would bring my emptiness -- to Christ's almighty, all-sufficient fullness. Alas! how far do I fall short of Your lofty standard of duty! How far do I come beneath my own best ideals! How much I think and say and do, when my motives are rigidly scrutinized -- is mingled with humbling imperfection! But, incomplete in myself, I am complete in Jesus! Thanks be to You, who always causes me to triumph in Christ. Impart to me especially, the aids of Your Holy Spirit, that He may quicken my zeal, energize my faith, deepen my love, elevate and consecrate my whole being! Of all "good things" -- of all Your promised blessings -- this is the best and greatest (Luke 11:13). Empower me with the Holy Spirit. Your Spirit, O God, is good; lead me into the land of uprightness.
Bless Your sorrowing children. May they be enabled to recognize chastisement as one of the gifts of adoption -- that You chasten them because You love them. With unrepining submission, may it be theirs to say, "It is the Lord; let Him do what seems good unto Him."
Look in pity, gracious God, on this sin-stricken, woe-worn world. Unloose the chains of slavery; scatter the people that delight in war; and hasten the advent and kingdom of the Prince of Peace. Stir up Your faithful people in Your service. Raise up honored heralds of the truth to prepare the way of the Lord, and make straight in the desert, a highway for our God. Give us all grace, in our varied spheres, to be waiting and watching; to lay out whatever talent You have entrusted to our care; to work while it is called today, and prepare for the coming night, when the season of earth's opportunities shall cease forever. I ask these, and other needed blessings, in the name and through the merits of Jesus Christ, Your only Son, our Savior.
"MY Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. May Your kingdom come. May Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our sins, just as we have forgiven those who have sinned against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one."
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Tenth Evening
"He prophesied that Jesus would die for the Jewish nation, and not only for that nation, but also for the scattered children of God, to bring them together and make them one." John 11:52
I will arise and go to my Father, and will say unto Him --
MY FATHER, before I retire to rest, visit me with Your grace. Renew to me the blessed sense of Your pardoning love. I have the blessings of another day, with thankful heart to record. I have received throughout its hours, double mercy for all my sins. And now, as the shadows of evening are gathering around, I beseech You to be my keeper. As You have been to me a pillar of cloud by day--be a pillar of fire by night. Fulfill Your own gracious promise: "In all places where I record My name, I will come unto you and bless you." "My presence shall go with you, and I will give you rest." May every joy of life be sweetened, and every sorrow sanctified, by the assurance that, "You are my Father." May I know, in common with the whole family of God, the exceeding greatness of Your power to us who believe.
While I renew my gratitude and praise for personal mercies, for the blessings of home and kindred, health and strength, above all, for spiritual and religious privileges, my thoughts are more especially drawn, to such as are less highly favored. I would sympathetically and earnestly remember those who are sitting in darkness, and in the region and shadow of death; who have never enjoyed the opportunity of welcoming the glad revelation of Yourself as a gracious Father, and of Christ as a living, loving Savior. Lord, hasten the time when "the children of God that are scattered abroad" shall by You be ingathered; when the filial song shall arise from a regenerated world, "Behold! we are all Your children!" Make those Your people, who are not Your people; and her beloved, who was not beloved. Let Jew and Gentile, barbarian, bond and free, exult together in the liberty of the glory of the sons of God!
Own every means for the promotion of Your cause. May the divine Dove of Peace brood, as He did over chaos of old, bringing light out of darkness, and order out of confusion. May we all feel, in our varied spheres of influence, that we have some mission, however lowly, to perform for You, and for the good of others. Give the single eye, and the single aim, and the lofty unalloyed motive.
Have great compassion on Your suffering and distressed children, more especially on the bereaved and desolate. May they recognize Your dealings, however mysterious, as dictated and regulated by unerring love, the appointments of Your own infinite wisdom; and look forward to that better world where all afflictions shall be ended, all tears dried -- where there is no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither any more pain, for the former things are passed away!
Gracious God, I anew plead with You, in fulfillment of the gospel promise of this evening, to gather together Your now scattered children, that so the happy predicted time may soon come, when no man shall need to teach his neighbor or his brother, saying, "Know the Lord," but when all shall know You, from the least even unto the greatest; when nations and kingdoms and people and tongues shall unite with one heart and voice in calling You "Our Father"!
"MY Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. May Your kingdom come. May Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our sins, just as we have forgiven those who have sinned against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one."
