18 Jun Sunday Morning Prayer by Dr. Joseph Parker – June 18, 2017
God of our fathers be the God of their succeeding race. Let thy light and thy truth shine forth and establish themselves in the love and confidence of all mankind. Hide not thy face from us. In the hiding of thy face is darkness, and the keeping back of thy hand is death. Draw near unto us! To our hearts daily do thou speak comfortably. Rebuke us not in thine anger, chide us not in thy displeasure, for the look of thy judgment will destroy us, and the breath of thine anger will carry us away. Our only hope is in thy love. Thy love we know best in Christ Jesus, the priest, the victim, the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but for the sins of the whole world. In his love would we meet thee, it is thine own love, eternal, unchangeable, infinite. We would hide ourselves in it as in a sanctuary that cannot be violated. May we stand in the infinite enclosure, safe from every assault and every temptation. Thou knowest us every one. Thou art the father which seeth in secret. Thou knowest our innermost thought There is not a word on our tongue that thou hast not weighed. There is not a thought in our heart that thine eyes have not penetrated. What shall we say unto thee, then, but God be merciful unto us sinners. We know the mystery of doubt We know what it is to go away from God, and to endeavour to create for ourselves gardens in the bleak wilderness. We are ashamed of our inventions, we renounce our hypocrisies. We come with the frankness of contrition, owning all our sin, and asking thee whilst looking upon the Saviour’s cross to pardon it with infinite forgiveness. Keep us every one during the few days we may have yet to live. Put within us the spirit of wisdom and of patience, and create in us that sacred expectation which expresses itself in filial prayer. Go with us the remainder of the journey. If there be long hills which we have yet to climb, the Lord help us to ascend every one of them in his own strength and grace. If the darkness should soon settle upon us, may we have a light in our hearts which no night can quench. Enable every man who has made a good vow, to keep it. Give answers of peace to those who have sought them in the name of Christ; and give to every one of us such a conception of life as shall make us solemn yet cheerful; sober because of the nearness of death, yet joyous because of our approaching immortality. “Jesus, refuge of my soul, let me to thy bosom flee.” “Rock of ages cleft for me, let me find my rest in thee.” Blind us to every other attraction, and fix our eyes on thine own fascination, thou Christ of God, fairest among ten thousand and lovely altogether. Amen.
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