Reading: “But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared.”—Psalm 130:4

May life’s joys be sweetened, and life’s sorrows sanctified, may the hour of death be gladdened with the assurance: “I am at peace with my God.” May Your favor brighten every scene, and the sweet sense of Your reconciling love be interfused with all my occupations. If sorrow should cloud or darken, may I be brought to feel that there can be no true sorrow or disquietude to the soul which has found its rest in the finished work of Jesus, and which has attained that blessed peace here, which is the prelude of glory hereafter.

Give me grace to walk more closely with You in the time to come. Being forgiven much, may I love You all the more. May my life be one habitual effort of self-crucifixion and sin-crucifixion, seeking to consecrate my soul’s best energies to Him who is willing to “blot out as a thick cloud” all my transgressions. Amid earth’s many disquietudes, its crosses and its losses, enable me with joy to look forward to that blessed hour when there shall be no more sin, and therefore no more sorrow; when every tear shall be wiped from every eye, and when I shall be permitted to know all that is comprehended in the holy beatitude, how “blessed” indeed are “the pure in heart” who are to “see God.”

Today, Lord, direct and control all my designs and thoughts and actions, that every power of my body and every faculty of my mind may unite in devotedness to Your sole service and glory. And all I ask is for Jesus’ sake. Amen.