"Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father!" Galatians 4:6
And He said unto them, When you pray, say --
MY FATHER, send forth Your Spirit into my heart, enabling me, as one of Your children by adoption, fully to realize the graciousness of Your paternal name, and the tenderness of Your paternal love. I come to the footstool of Your throne, thanking You for this morning's light and this morning's mercies. Refresh me with Your blessing; revive me with Your grace. May I enjoy a season of fellowship with You my Father, and with Your Son, Jesus Christ. I acknowledge with profound thankfulness Your unwearying watchfulness and care. Sun of my soul, shine upon me with the brightness of Your rising. May each returning morning be the emblem and pledge of that glorious day, when the sun shall no more go down, neither shall the moon withdraw itself, but You shall be my everlasting Light.
With an ever-deepening reverence would I say, "Give me this day, and day by day, Father, my daily bread." I would realize my constant dependence as the pensioner on Your bounty. Lift me above the unrest and perplexities of the present. Enable me to see You in everything, and everything in You. May I know and feel that Your favor alone is life, and Your loving-kindness is better than life. My heart and my flesh fails; but You are the strength of my heart, and my portion forever.
I acknowledge with sincerity and penitence of heart, my manifold trespasses. I have done those things I ought not to have done; I have left undone those things which I ought to have done; and there is no soundness in me. I have nothing to palliate or extenuate my guilt. Against You -- You only, have I sinned, and done iniquity in Your sight. Father, forgive me! Father, love me! Father, save me! Father, fetch me home from every unworthy wandering!
Let me rise to a sense of my adoption privileges, with purposes and resolutions of new obedience. May Your Holy Spirit, the Comforter, the Purifier, the Sanctifier -- preserve my soul pure and undefiled as His own living temple, revealing the glory of the Redeemer's person and work -- taking of the things that are Christ's, and showing them unto me. It is by Your grace alone, that I stand. How often has Your interposing hand shielded me from spiritual danger, and repelled the assaults of evil! Be still my ever-present Defender. Keep me from all false ways, from treading questionable ground. If there are temptations, please disarm them. If there are difficulties, please remove or resolve them. If there are joys, please hallow them. If there are trials, please sanctify them.
Deepen in me a sense of my individual responsibility to You. May the divine principle of love, influence and govern all my actions. You love me too well to give me my own way; for in my blindness and self-will I would often choose the evil -- and refuse the good. Seal me with the Holy Spirit of promise, which is the pledge of my heavenly inheritance.
Pity Your children who are in sorrow. Bless all weepers and watchers by the couch of sickness, or the bed of death. Spare useful and valued lives. Turn back, if it is Your holy will, the shadow on life's dial; and where You have appointed otherwise, transform the gate of death into the gate of heaven.
O Lord arise, and have mercy upon Zion. Let the time to favor her, yes, the set time, soon come. May all Your churches, walking in Your fear, and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, everywhere be multiplied. Open closed eyes to see, and closed ears to hear, and closed hearts to understand Your Word. Arise, O God, and plead Your own cause.
I would seek this morning to have my mind stayed on You; living under the loving constraint of that lofty motive, "to do always those things that are pleasing in Your sight." I would be strengthened for the day's engagements, and fortified against its trials, by thus summing up my petitions with the divinely-taught words -- "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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Eighteenth Evening
"Those who are led by the Spirit of God -- are sons of God. You received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, "Abba, Father." The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children." Romans 8:14-16
I will arise and go to my Father, and will say unto Him --
MY FATHER, I thank You for this, Your new, best name. The shadows of evening have again fallen around me. May I repose under the shadow of Your wings. With You there is no darkness at all; the darkness and the light are both alike unto You. Before I lie down to rest, impart to me the gracious sense of Your favor -- of sin forgiven, of peace secured and sealed to me through the blood of the cross. Cleanse the thoughts of my heart by the work of Your Holy Spirit, that I may be enabled perfectly to love You, and worthily to magnify Your holy name.
While I thank You for the unnumbered temporal blessings of my lot, let me ever feel that of all Your gifts -- You Yourself are the crown and consummation of all Your blessings! I would bless You especially this night for the gift and revelation of Your Holy Spirit -- the Enlightener, Purifier, Sanctifier of Your people. May it be mine to feel His indwelling power, His quickening, energizing influences, raising me more and more from the death of sin -- to the life of righteousness. May He bear witness with my spirit that I am Your child, and, as a child, an heir of heaven.
Have You not just said, by the mouth of Your holy apostle, Those who are led by the Spirit of God -- are sons of God"? May I thus be conducted on from grace to grace, and from strength to strength. Your Spirit, O God, is good; lead me to the land of uprightness -- that land where the leading will be from glory to glory. May it be my endeavor now to attain a gradual resemblance to the image and character of the divine Redeemer, aspiring after that holiness of heart and life without which no one can see, no one can enjoy, the presence and fellowship of an infinitely pure and holy God.
I pray for any in whom I am interested who may still be far from You -- those who are crying in the far country, "I perish with hunger." Gracious Father, fetch them home! Let them welcome the outstretched arms of Your love, the opened gates of mercy. Have compassion on a world lying in wickedness, on the nations and peoples that know You not. Come from the four winds, O Breath, O Spirit of God, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live! Brood, as You did of old over the darkness of chaos, and say, "Let there be light!"
Pity those who are in tribulation, and with regard to whom deep may be calling unto deep. May Jesus come to them walking on the sea. Enable them to look forward in quiet, peaceful confidence to the time when every wave will be rocked to rest, sin vanquished, sorrow unknown, tears wiped away. Meanwhile, as Your children, may they feel that even in the floods of great waters they are "led by the Spirit of God." May He, in these "paths of the sea," reveal Himself especially to them as the Comforter.
I again invoke Your guardian care and divine blessing. Spare me, good Lord, to welcome the light of a new day. May I awake in Your favor, fitted for the discharge of all its duties.
"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."
