Philip said, "Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us." Jesus answered: "Don't you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father." John 14:8-9
And He said unto them, When you pray, say --
MY FATHER, enable me this morning to worship You in spirit and in truth. "No man has seen God at any time." But I desire, with reverence and filial love, to lay hold on the glorious declaration that "the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him." In You, Christ, in Your divine, human person, I have the image of the invisible God. Set in this cleft of the Rock of Ages, as in the case of Your honored servant of old, You have made all the glory of the infinite Godhead to pass before me, and have blessed me with the same revelation of the divine character and attributes, "The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious."
I delight to follow Your footsteps on earth; to behold You feeding the hungry and clothing the naked, healing the sick and helping the helpless, calming the sorrowful, giving heart and hope to the prodigal, the wandering, the lost. And in all this mission and ministry of love, You were the great Revealer of the mystery hid from ages and generations, "the brightness of the Father's glory, and the express image of His person." In answer to the quest, "Show me the Father," You have given the gracious answer, "He who has seen Me, has seen the Father." May it be mine to say, "From henceforth I know Him and have seen Him!"
Blessed Savior, You know my special burdens, my peculiar sources of unrest and disquiet, my cares and perplexities, the besetting sins which hamper and impede me. Make me possessor of that peace here, which is the prelude to glory hereafter. May I find that the best preservative against temptation, is realizing the infinite obligations under which I am, to redeeming love; that I am not my own, but bought with a price! Enable me with appropriating faith to say, "He loved me, and gave Himself for me!" Transform me more and more into that same image and likeness. Give me a child's obedience and submission, a child's trust and affection and love. May the divine words spoken by divine lips form the motive power and principle of life: "I must be about my Father's business!"
Bless all means and instrumentalities for the promotion of Your cause throughout the world. O Lord arise, and have mercy upon Zion, and show that the time to favor her, yes the set time, has come. May the Holy Spirit come down on every branch of the church universal, in all the plenitude of His gifts and graces.
Bestow Your guardian care on those near and dear to me. May they too be able to say, "We beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." I would leave all that concerns alike them and myself -- to Your better direction, saying, "Undertake for us!"
Bless those in sorrow. Let them rejoice in the assurance that the roll of Providence is in the hand of Him who pre-eminently by experience "knows their sorrows." When the causes of severe discipline are often unrevealed to the eye of sense, may they trust "that same Jesus" who felt for them, and wept for them, and bled for them; and behold in His exalted sympathy the reflection and pledge of the Father's love, whose name and nature He came to reveal.
I invoke Your favor on this the morning of a new day. I would enter on its duties, trusting alone in the merits and mediation of the divine Redeemer, who taught us thus to call You -- "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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Twenty-sixth Evening
"As the Father has loved Me -- so have I loved you! Continue in My love." John 15:9
I will arise and go to my Father, and will say unto Him --
MY FATHER, let me go to sleep with this most blessed and amazing assurance falling on my ear. Reveal to me, however poorly and inadequately I may grasp the reality, the ineffable love existing between You and Your dear Son, that I may be enabled in some feeble measure to comprehend what is the height and depth and length and breadth of Christ's love to me -- the interest He feels in me and in my eternal salvation. Come, Lord Jesus, as You did to Your wayward and erring disciple of old. Let me hear Your solemn words challenging on my part unreserved obedience and gratitude and heart-consecration, "Do you love Me?"
Feelingly alive to the infinite obligation under which I am laid to You, may it be mine in sincerity of purpose, and in the sight of the great Heart-Searcher, to make the avowal, "Lord, You know all things; You know that, despite of stumblings and faintings, of weaknesses and fears, departures and backslidings, it is at least my earnest desire to love You. Here is my heart. Take it this night and make it Your own. I lay afresh my vow on Your altar. Sprinkle my unworthy offering and imperfect service with the 'much incense,' that thus my evening prayer may ascend, acceptable and accepted, into the ear of my Father in heaven."
Come as You did at eventide to Your disciples of old, and breathe upon me, and say, "Peace be unto you!" May I know that there can be no unrest or disquietude to the soul that has fled to the unfailing Refuge; that there can be no discord or disharmony where the heart has responsively listened to that divinest music, "Come unto Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."
May it be my habitual aspiration to walk in the path of holy obedience, listening at every turn of life, to this evening's gracious monition, "Continue in My love." Give me greater singleness of eye and simplicity of faith. May it be my growing experience that Your favor is life, and Your loving-kindness is better than life. May I seek in all things, and especially in my appointed sphere, to glorify Your holy name.
Look in great kindness on the afflicted -- those who are treading with downcast spirits the pilgrim-way. Under the shadow of the cross may they too find consolation and peace, the peace which the world can neither give nor take away.
Meet my beloved friends this night on the mount of prayer. May they be able to say, "Lord, it is good for us to be here." May I and they together live conscious of a true though invisible fellowship in You; and when earth's separations are ended, may we together meet where ties can never be sundered, or friendships fail.
Anew I supplicate Your blessing. Watch over me during the unconscious hours of sleep. Abide with me, blessed Savior, for it is toward evening and the day is far spent. Thus may each day prove like an Emmaus journey with You at my side; and continuing in Your love now, may it be mine at last, through the gate of death, to be ushered into its full and everlasting fruition!
Meanwhile, in that glorious anticipation, I would repeat earth's holiest, most comprehensive prayer -- "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."
