Reading: Let thy tender mercies come unto me, that I may live: for thy law is my delight.”Psalm 119:77

Good Lord, preserve me from the sin of insensibility to Your unwearied kindness—of taking Your mercies as matters of course and thus living in a state of independence of You. May my whole existence become a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving. May all my doings testify the sincerity and devotion of a heart feeling alive to every gift of the great Giver; and, especially, may I be so brought under the constraining influence of redeeming love, as to consecrate every power of my body and every faculty of my soul to Him who so willingly consecrated and shed His very life’s blood for me.

Lord, this day shine upon me with the light of Your countenance; may every mercy I experience in the course of it be hallowed and sweetened by the thought that it comes from God. And, while ever mindful and thankful in the midst of present mercies, teach me to keep in view the crowning mercy of all—the hope of at last sharing Your presence and full fruition, and of joining in the eternal ascription with the ransomed multitude above who cease not day nor night to celebrate Your praises.

Bless all near and dear to me. Defend them by Your mighty power. Give them, too, gratitude for mercies past, and the sure and well-grounded hope of a glorious inheritance in that better world, where mercy is unmixed with judgment, and joy undarkened by sorrow. And all I ask is for Jesus’ sake. Amen