God's Good Pleasure

Sovereign Lord,

Your will is supreme in heaven and earth,
and all beings are creatures of Your power.
You are the Father of our spirits;
Your inspiration gives us understanding,
Your providence governs our lives.

But, O God, we are sinners in Your sight;
You have judged us so,
and if we deny it we make You a liar.
Yet in Christ You are reconciled to Your rebellious subjects;
give us the ear of faith to hear Him,
the eye of faith to see Him,
the hand of faith to receive Him,
the appetite of faith to feed upon Him;
that we might find in Him light,
riches, honor, eternal life.

You are the inviting one, may we hearken to You;
the almighty instructor, teach us to live to You;
the light-dweller, inaccessible to man and angels,
hiding Yourself behind the elements of creation,
but known to us in Jesus,
Fill our minds with the grandeur of Your perfections.

Your love to us in Jesus is firm and changeless,
nothing can separate us from it,
and in the enjoyment of it nothing can make us miserable.

Preserve us from hypocrisy and formality in religion;
Enable us to remember what You are and what we are,
to recall Your holiness and our unworthiness;
Help us to approach You clothed with humility,
for vanity, forwardness, insensibility,
disorderly affection, backwardness to duty,
proneness to evil are in our hearts.

Let us never forget Your patience, wisdom, power, faithfulness, care,
and never cease to respond to Your invitations.

Taken from The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth Trust, 1975), p. 222.