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TOPIC: MacDuff, John - Gates of Prayer (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 01 Day 01
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1st Morning—ALL NEED SUPPLIED
"My God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus." Phil. 4:19
O God, my Heavenly Father, who has permitted me to see the light and to enjoy the comforts of a new day, I bless You for the liberty of access into Your presence. Rend Your heavens and come down; fill my heart with Your love, as I draw near to the footstool of Your Throne. I thank You for Your gracious assurance that these Gates of Prayer lead to an abounding treasury of spiritual blessing, out of which all my need shall be supplied. In Jesus, my adorable Redeemer, infinite fullness dwells; and out of His fullness—the riches of Your glory in Him—You are willing to impart even grace for grace.
You have supplied all my need in the past. You have been a loving, a bountiful, and a wise Provider; satisfying me with the blessings of Your goodness, and giving help from trouble, when vain was the help of man. I look to You for guidance and direction in the future. That future is veiled and hidden—but it is in Your better keeping. I would say, in simple confiding faith, "Undertake for me." Hitherto have You been true to Your unfailing promise "As your day is, so shall your strength be;" and over every coming need and exigency I may well write "Jehovah Jireh," "The Lord will provide."
Supply that need this day. If called to do battle with evil, let me go forth in Your might, panoplied for the conflict. Strengthen me with Your good Spirit—fortify me against every temptation. In the extremity of my own weakness, may I lean on Your Almighty arm—hold me up, and I shall be safe. Preserve me from the world's insinuating, seductive power, and from the treachery and deceitfulness of my own evil heart. Order my steps in Your word, and let no iniquity have dominion over me.
In the discharge of duty, may it be my effort and endeavor to subordinate the secular to the sacred. Keep me ever roused from the low dream of earth, to see, as in the patriarch's dream, the ladder of God. May Your providences be as angels traveling up and down that ladder, and beckoning me "nearer to You." Keep me from whatever would be detrimental to my spiritual interests—from all avarice and selfishness; from all malice and uncharitableness; from all indolence and sloth; from putting off until tomorrow what can be best done, and may only be done, today.
If You have given me of this world's goods, may I seek to be a generous distributor of Your bounties. If silver and gold I have none, may I give You the consecration of the heart, and the answer of the life; knowing that You accept, according to that a man has, not according to what he has not. Forbid that my talent, be what it may, should be hid in the earth. May I ever listen to the prompting "How much do you owe your Lord?" and with a quickened sense of my responsibilities to You the Great Creditor, may I be diligent, that I may be found of You in peace, without spot, and blameless.
Supply the need of those whom I love. Wherever my friends are, O ever-present God, protect and defend them by Your mighty power. If You send them prosperity, keep them from being intoxicated with it—if You send adversity, keep them from being unduly depressed by it. Enrich them with the blessings of Your covenant grace. May we all be bound up together, on the great reaping-day of Judgment, in the same 'bundle of life'.
Supply the need of those who are in sorrow. When human cisterns are emptied and human props removed, may they know You as the Portion that cannot be taken from them. May they honor You by being silent in the midst of perplexing dealings—recognizing these as the ministers of Your will, sent on a mission of wisdom and mercy, and that while they are only planning for time, You are planning for Eternity. May they trust Your sure word of promise, that though now they may see through a glass darkly—when death shall have rent with his wing the obstructing cloud, in Your light they shall see light. May the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, direct their hearts into the love of God, and into the patient waiting for Christ.
Bless the nations of the earth. Hasten the day when the nameless wrongs of a now groaning and travailing creation shall be redressed; when all heathen shrines shall be demolished; when will-worship and superstition shall cease. Turn the world's sighings into songs of gladness. Cause its sinful unbelief, the lust and tyranny of passion, the twin curse of slavery and war, to yield to the benignant scepter of the Prince of Peace. Increase the ministry of holy lives, and loving deeds. Purify Your churches more and more. Stimulate them to greater energy in Your service. As witnesses for You may they seek with augmented and ever increasing fidelity to show forth the Word of life—and may Your faithful ministers enjoy at last the blessed testimony, that they have not run in vain, neither labored in vain.
Listen to these my humble prayers, and when You hear forgive and grant me an answer in peace for the Redeemer's sake. Amen.
1st Evening—THE GREATEST GIFT
"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him, should not perish, but have everlasting life." John 3:16
Almighty God, I desire to approach Your gracious presence on this the evening of another day. I bless You that I can come to the Gate of prayer and know it to be a Gate of love. If the vast creation be Your temple, this is its "Beautiful gate," for God is love. All other powers of Your universe are vassal to love. It is Your nature, Your name, Your glory. No earthly friend could have loved me and cared for me like You. Man's love is finite, Your is infinite. Man's love is changing, Your is unchanging. Man's love must sooner or later die—change it may—perish at some time it must—but Yours is unfailing from everlasting to everlasting.
You have given me the mightiest proof of Your benignity and condescension in the gift of Your dear Son. His advent might have been for the world's condemnation—but "God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved." It might have been to pronounce the woe of eternal death—"but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."
Lord, if such has been Your love to me; how poor and cold and inadequate has been my return to You! I have before me, this night, the memories of neglected duty, slighted warnings, broken vows, forgotten mercies, resisted grace. I feel how sin darkens the understanding—perverts and alienates the will—deadens the heart—depraves the affections. I acknowledge my deep creature destitution; my sins of nature, my sins of practice; my shortcomings known to my fellow creatures, my sadder failures in heart and life, in principle and in duty, alone known to You. I have too often stifled the accusations of an upbraiding conscience—I have permitted the ascendency of worldly influences—I have bent like a brittle reed before the power of temptation.
I flee anew to the shelter of Your love. May my faith be simpler—deeper—truer. May I have a humbler reliance of the efficacy of the blood of atonement; and by the loyalty I owe to my Redeemer, seek to make a fresh dedication of myself to His service. I would see too, in the gift of Jesus, the pledge of all minor blessings. Let me have no over-anxious care for the future. With the Cross of Calvary before me, may I leave the unknown tomorrow, with all its solicitudes, in the better keeping of a faithful covenant God. "I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him."
Lord, mold my heart more and more in conformity with Your holy will. May I find pleasure in nothing without You; maintaining a constant and habitual hatred of those sins which have again and again severed me from Your favor. Keep me from pride and passion—from fretfulness and discontent—from envy and jealousy. Repress all inordinate and unlawful desires. May the faculties of my being and the strength of my affections be surrendered to Your service. May my soul be filled with the one absorbing passion of love to Him who first loved and so loved me.
Look down in kindness on my friends and relatives. May it be theirs also, through the Redeemer's merits, to have the gift of eternal life. May they be among the number of those who love You, who are said to be "as the sun when he goes forth in his might."
I pray for all whom You have visited with tribulation. May they know that Your purpose in bringing them into the threshing floor, is to separate the chaff from the wheat. May they see the winnowing fan in Your hand—preparing the grain for the heavenly garner. May all sick ones whom Jesus loves, triumph in His love—may the thought that You did not spare even Your own Son, hush every repining word—may they remember that every sorrow that wounds them has wounded Him. May dying ones listen to the pleadings of the Great Intercessor, "Father I will, that they also whom You have given me be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory."
Save Your people and bless your inheritance. It is upon a Rock You have built Your church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Be as a wall of fire around Your Zion and the glory in the midst thereof. May God be known in all her palaces for a refuge. May the watchmen on her walls be men of faith and men of prayer, who make mention of the Lord and keep not silence, until He establishes and until He makes His people a praise in the earth.
I desire to compose myself to rest at peace with You, exulting in the plenitude of Your love in Jesus. O God of love and of peace—be the guardian of my sleeping hours—and may every night as it comes round, find me more and more fit and prepared for entering on the great heritage of everlasting life, through my only Lord and Savior. Amen.