Wednesday is for Prayer
We are wise to learn from the great saints of the past how to pray. Here is one of those great prayers from a previous generation that we would do well to pray for ourselves every day and for all those we love. May all your study and all your work today, take you back to the foot of the cross in child-like faith.
O Heavenly Father,
Teach me to see
that if Christ has pacified thee and satisfied divine justice
he can also deliver me from my sins;
that Christ does not desire me, now justified,
to live in self-confidence in my own strength,
but gives me the law of the Spirit of life to enable me to obey thee;
that the Spirit and his power are mine by resting on Christ’s death;
that the Spirit of life within answers to the law without;
that if I sin not I should thank thee for it;
that if I sin I should be humbled daily under it;
that I should mourn for sin more than other men do,
for when I see I will die because of sin, that makes me mourn;
when I see how sin strikes at thee, that makes me mourn;
when I see that sin caused Christ’s death, that makes me mourn;
that sanctification is the evidence of reconciliation,
proving that faith has truly apprehended Christ;
Thou hast taught me
that faith is nothing else than receiving thy kindness;
that it is an adherence to Christ, a resting on him,
love clinging to him as a branch to the tree,
to seek life and vigour from him.
I thank thee for showing me the vast difference
between knowing things by reason,
and knowing them by the spirit of faith.
By reason I see a thing is so;
by faith I know it as it is.
I have seen thee by reason and have not been amazed,
I have seen thee as thou art in thy Son
and have been ravished to behold thee.
I bless thee that I am thine in my Saviour, Jesus.
—The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers & Devotions, Ed. Arthur Bennett, (Banner of Truth Trust, 1975), 102-103.
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