28 May Sunday Morning Prayer by Dr. Joseph Parker – May 28, 2017
Almighty God, thy grace is greater than our sin. Where sin abounds grace doth much more abound. Thou dost not only pardon, thou dost abundantly pardon, as a sea might swallow up a little stream. When we look at our sin we burn with shame, we stagger under a great burden which we cannot carry; but when we look at thy grace, at the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, behold, how wondrous it is, and how our hearts are constrained to right again, and how our whole life answers the mighty appeal of thy love. Thou wilt conquer sin: thou wilt destroy all the darkness,—yea, the sun itself shall be counted dark, and as for the moon, thou wilt drop it out of thy great creation as needed no more. The Lamb shall be the light of the new place, the face of God shall irradiate the heavens. Thou doest great things and marvelous; yea, thou dost overpower our imagining and make all our fancy foolish when we attempt to set forth before ourselves the wonders of thy doing. We would live in the spirit of this education: we would be moved by impulses arising from this contemplation of thy greatness. Then shall our life be ennobled, our whole being shall assume new proportions, our lowliest service shall be touched with a royal value, and all we say and do will have about it the breathing of the grandeur of eternity. We bless thee for any uplifting of mind, and especially for the elevation of soul which comes at the altar of the sanctuary in the overpowering presence of the dying Son of God. Here thou dost exalt our thought, and here thou dost give us softening of love and melting of heart so that our whole life runs out to thee, for thou alone art its beginning and its sufficiency. We pray for one another. Every heart, having spoken its own little prayer for its own little self, would think of the other now,—the dumb tongue that cannot pray, the hard heart that will not pray, the weary traveller who cannot find strength to pray. The Lord remember us every one, omit none from his blessing, but seek out that which is lost, find it, save it, and may every heart be touched with comfort, be enriched with new grace, and arise to new conceptions of Christian thought, and offer itself a new sacrifice on the altar of the cross. Dry our tears when we cannot count them. Give us lifting up of mind when the clouds are like a burden upon our head, and whisper to us some gentle word that shall be a singing gospel in the heart when no other voice can reach our weariness or heal our woe. We come with this prayer because of the authority and encouragement of Jesus Christ. He hath opened a door that is very wide, he hath uttered welcomes broader than our necessity, penetrating into the region of our pain and distress, and he hath offered us the hospitality of God, whereby our hunger and our thirst may be for ever appeased, and he has given unto us thy rest, which is an infinite calm. Amen.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.