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TOPIC: MacDuff, John - Gates of Prayer (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 10 Day 10
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10th Morning—STRONG CONSOLATION
"So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us." Hebrews 6:17, 18
O God, I beseech You to draw near to me in Your great mercy. My voice shall You hear in the morning, O Lord—in the morning will I direct my prayer unto You and will look up. Fill my heart with Your love; that I may feel the Gate of prayer to be as the Gate of heaven—the portal opening into a Father's presence.
I bless You that amid all changes You are unchanging—that amid the instability and insecurity of human purposes—the fickleness of earthly counsels—I can exult in Your faithfulness. You are the same. "The Lord lives and blessed be my Rock, and let the God of my salvation be exalted." I thank You especially, for the purchased blessings of that everlasting covenant which is well ordered in all things and sure. By two immutable things—Your oath and Your promise—in which it is impossible for God to lie, I have strong consolation.
And yet Lord, I have to acknowledge with shame and humiliation, that I have not been living up to my privileges. I have not been realizing as I ought to have done, my position and prospects as an heir of these exceeding great and precious promises. Your mercies have been too often received with unthankfulness, and Your chastisements with repining. I have to bewail my lack of faith and lack of love—my coldness and deadness—the dullness of my spiritual perceptions—the often surrender of my heart to objects and pursuits on which Your favor cannot rest. I have too often given to self, and the world, and sin—those affections and that service which should have been inalienably Yours.
Where can I look, in the hour of conscious unworthiness and demerit, but to the "strong consolation" of Your blessed Word. If I have forgotten and forsaken my first love—if other lords have had dominion over me—if like a vessel I have broken loose from my moorings and been drifting away from You, may that hope—the hope of forgiveness now and the hope of heaven hereafter—both purchased and sealed for me in the cross of Your dear Son—be as an anchor of the soul sure and steadfast, entering into that within the veil.
Fit me this day for the battle of life. Trusting to the promised aids of Your Spirit, may I be enabled to resist the world, the flesh, and the devil. Keep me from absorbing love of earth—from all forbidden paths—from all doubtful and debatable ground. Preserve me from the lusts which debase, the selfishness which hardens, the anger or malice which, if unchecked and unrepressed, may grow into malevolence. Give me a spirit of watchfulness—keeping vigil even in the hour of apparent security; ever listening to the needed monition "When you think you stands, take heed lest you fall." Preserve me from hard construction of Your dealings—from hard construction of the doings and dealings of my fellow-creatures—from censorious and ungenerous suspicions. May I strive to make charitable allowance for those who injure me—eschewing all hastiness of speech or temper. If exposed to unmerited wrong, may I leave my cause with You.
I pray for all who may still be far from You—living without God and without hope in the world. May they also be led, before it be too late, to flee for refuge and lay hold on the hope set before them in the gospel—confiding in the inviolability of Your own oath and promise, "As I live, says the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of him that dies."
Hear the cry ascending from the dark places of the earth, full of the habitations of cruelty. Lord, how long? Let the wickedness of the wicked come to an end; let the reign of the just be established. Bless and prosper every mission cause and enterprise. May idols be dethroned and idol-worship abolished, and may men know that You, whose name alone is Jehovah, are the most High over all the earth. Bless our beloved country. Give to its rulers wisdom and prudence and energy—a sense of responsibility to You, by whom kings reign and princes decree justice. Reform whatever is evil—protect, conserve, and perpetuate whatever is good.
O God of the mourner!—to the fatherless be a Father—to the widow a husband—to the friendless a friend. May all afflicted ones know, in the midst of their sorrows, the strong consolation imparted to those who have fled to Christ for refuge. Great and manifold as are Your consolations at all times, You are specially a present help in trouble.
I again commend myself to You and to the word of Your grace. Be ever at my right hand and I shall not be moved. As an heir of promise, may my eye be upwards and my footsteps onwards. May everything tend to promote my spiritual advancement. May the joys of the way and the trials of the way alike bring me nearer heaven and nearer to You. I ask these and all other needed blessings, in the name of Jesus Christ, my only Lord and Savior. Amen.
10th Evening—GOD IS LOVE
"He who loves not, knows not God; for God is love." 1 John 4:8
Almighty and everlasting Father, the God of my life, the length of my days, I desire this evening, before I retire to rest, to offer the tribute of grateful praise for all Your mercies given to me, and to supplicate Your blessing and guardian care during the silent watches of the night. I adore You for the gracious manifestations You have made of Your name and character and attributes—as the Holy and the Righteous, the Just and the True. Above all, I bless You for Your best, Your endearing name—"God is love." Your outer creation proclaims it—the vocal melodies of forest and grove—the placid heavens above, and the bounteous earth beneath—spring in its buds of promise, and summer with its wealth of beauty. In a silent hymn of thanksgiving, universal nature testifies, "The Lord is good to all, and His tender mercies are over all His works."
But it is in the work and atonement of Your dear Son, You have given the mightiest proof and pledge of the great love with which You have loved me. It is while seated at the foot of His cross, that I can most truly exclaim, "Herein indeed is love!" I rejoice to think of the eternity of that love—that it existed before the birth of time or of worlds. You loved Your people with an everlasting love. And knowing no beginning of days, neither does it know end of years. Loving Your own who are in the world, You loved them unto the end. O You, whose nature and whose name is love, bring me to live under the power and influence of this divine perfection. May I be enabled, more and more, to love Him who has first loved and so loved me. Keep me from the guilt of requiting Your love with ingratitude. May it secure and conciliate my confidence and trust. Deliver me from every heart-sin and life-sin that would tend to intercept its gracious effluence. By needed and salutary discipline, wean me from every less worthy object of affection. Subordinate all creature and created love to the divine. May the love of God be shed abroad in my heart by the Holy Spirit given unto me. Even should You see fit to chequer my path with trials, may these prove heart-searchers, testing the depth and reality of my devotion to Him who must do all things well, and nothing but what is well; so that I may be able to say, under every varying scene of changeful life—"I have known and believed the love which God has to me."
Bathed in the element of love to You a loving God, let me seek to love all around. Give me large and generous thoughts and plans for the welfare of others. May that love of Yours, which has my own heart and the circle of my more immediate influence for its center, have the world for its circumference. Let it radiate forth to all mankind.
Keep my dear friends and relatives in this same pavilion of love. May they pillow their heads this night on the divine assurance, "He who spared not His own Son, but gave Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things." Linked to one another and to You in these bonds of holy fellowship, may we together look forward to that daybreak of immortality when this divine affection will be enthroned supremely in every heart; when at last we shall all be able to comprehend, in some feeble measure, what is the height and depth and length and breadth, and to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge.
Bless all in sorrow. May they indulge no hard suspicions of Your faithfulness—may they trace no footsteps in their darkened way but the footsteps of love—may they hear no voice in their hushed chambers but the voice of love. May they listen to this explanation of Your dealings, "As many as I love I rebuke and chasten."
Hasten the day, when this world, now groaning and travailing in pain and clad in the garments of sorrow, shall be arrayed in festive attire, and be enabled to exult in the glorious liberty of Your children. Send times of refreshing unto Zion. Create upon all her dwelling-places and upon her assemblies, a cloud and smoke by day and the shining of a flaming fire by night—upon all the glory be a defense. Arise, O Lord, and plead Your own cause.
Be pleased to forgive whatever in thought, in word, or in deed, I have committed against You this day. Before I retire to rest, sprinkle my heart with the covenant token. Oh, unslumbering Shepherd of Israel, guard my midnight hours; and when the Gates of the morning again are opened, may they be opened anew to the light of Your love, and to fresh heart-consecration to Your service and glory.
I present these humble supplications, relying on nothing in myself, but trusting alone for pardon and acceptance and peace, to the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ, my only Lord and Savior. Amen.