From back when I was still a student…

Savior and King,
I find it so easy to revel in knowledge for knowledge’s sake,
avoiding the goal of instruction: to learn love.
A puffed-up mind may be able to hide an impure heart,
an aching conscience
or insincere motives from others,
but before you, all is laid bare.
The purpose of my training is to grow in love and faithfulness,
purity and authenticity.
Help me, O Lord, to keep in mind your purposes
for the instruction I receive.
I pray that when I leave here,
my love will have grown,
many sinful habits will have been left behind,
and any insincere motivations or spiritual facade will have been shattered.
May you work in my heart to draw me closer to yourself.
Help me to love, O Lord.
Give me a heart that breaks
for those held in the chains of sin.
Clear my conscience
and authenticate my faith.
May the knowledge I obtain be for your glory
and for the growth of your love in my all-too-hardened heart.
And help conform me to the image of Christ, in whose name I pray. Amen.

first posted, April 2008

My new favorite song. (Yes, I know it’s been out a while. Just now catching up.)

How could I stand here
And watch the sun rise
Follow the mountains
Where they touch the sky
Ponder the vastness
And the depths of the sea
And think for a moment
The point of it all was to make much of me?

Cause I’m just a whisper
And You are the thunder and

I want to make much of You, Jesus
I want to make much of Your love
I want to live today to give You the praise
That You alone are so worthy of
I want to make much of Your mercy
I want to make much of Your cross
I give You my life
Take it and let it be used
To make much of You

And how can I kneel here
And think of the cross
The thorns and the whip and the nails and the spear
The infinite cost
To purchase my pardon
And bear all my shame
To think I have anything worth boasting in except for Your name

Cause I am a sinner
And You are the Savior

This is Your love, oh God
Not to make much of me
But to send Your own son
So that we could make much of You

For all eternity

- Steven Curtis Chapman

O Eternal God,
Sanctify my body and soul,
my thought and my intentions,
my words and actions,
that whatsoever I shall think or speak or do,
may be by me designed for the glorification of Your name,
and by Your blessing,
it may be effective and successful in the work of God,
according as it can be capable.

Lord, turn my necessities into virtue;
the works of nature into the works of grace;
by making them orderly, regular, temperate;
and let no pride or self-seeking,
no covetousness or revenge,
no little ends and low imaginations,
pollute my spirit,
and unhallow any of my words and actions.

- Jeremy Taylor, 1613-1667 

Lord of hosts!
When I swim in the merciful waters of Your grace,
I find that I can neither plumb nor measure the depths.
Your compassion is the greatest of all Your works.

Lord, who ever came to you with a devout heart and was turned away?
Who ever sought You and did not find You?
Who ever desired aid from You and was not given help?
Who ever prayed for Your grace and did not receive it?
Who ever called upon You and was not heard?

Yes, beloved Lord, how many You have received in grace
when according to Your strict sense of justice
they would have deserved something else.

Adam departed from You
and believed the counsel of the serpent.
He transgressed Your covenant
and became for You a child of death.
But Your fatherly love
would not allow Him to be thrown aside.
In grace You sought after Him,
You called and admonished Him
and covered His nakedness with pelts of fur.
You mercifully comforted Him
with a promise concerning His seed.

Paul, Your chosen vessel, was at one time like a roaring lion
and a ravaging wolf against Your holy mountain.
Yet You shone Your grace upon Him
and enlightened His blindness.
You called Him from heaven
and chose Him to be an apostle and servant in Your house.

Beloved Lord,
I am the greatest of sinners and the least among the saints.
I am unworthy to be called Your child or servant,
for I have sinned against heaven and before You.
There was a time when I opposed Your glorious Word
and Your holy will with all my power.
Yet this miserable sinner was never abandoned by Your fatherly grace.
You accepted me in love
and converted me to a new understanding.
You led me with Your right hand
and taught me through Your Holy Spirit.
Then by my own free will
I began also to strive against the world, the flesh, and the devil.
I renounced all my comforts, serenity, honor and easy living
and willingly took upon myself the heavy cross of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now I also am an inheritor of that promised kingdom
with all servants of God and disciples of Christ.
So again I say, Your mercy is the greatest of all Your works.

Therefore, beloved Lord…
Consider Your great goodness
in which all take part who have placed their hope
in Your holy name and gracious mercy since the beginning of the world.

- Menno Simons, Early Anabaptist Spirituality: Selected Writings (Classics of Western Spirituality), 251-2.

O Lord our God,
We know You are not only good
but also great.
We know You are able
to do strange and wonderful things.

Let us not be so skeptical
that we fail to see them.

But neither let us be so greedy for signs
that we fail to see the slow steady wonder
of creation and providence all around us.
In Jesus’ name, Amen.

- Cornelius Plantinga, Jr. 

O Lord,
the Helper of the helpless,
the Hope of those who are past hope,
the Savior of the tempest-tossed,
the Harbor of the voyagers,
the Physician of the sick…

You know each soul and our prayer,
each home and its need.

Become to each one of us what we most dearly require,
receiving us all into your kingdom,
making us children of light,
and pour on us your peace and love,
O Lord our God.
Amen.

- Basil the Great

On the third day the friends of Christ coming at daybreak to the place found the grave empty and the stone rolled away.

In varying ways they realised the new wonder; but even they hardly realised that the world had died in the night.

What they were looking at was the first day of a new creation, with a new heaven and a new earth; and in a semblance of the gardener God walked again in the garden, in the cool not of the evening but the dawn.”

- G.K. Chesterton

Help me to cling to the cross,
be crucified to the world by it,
and in it find deepest humiliation,
motives to patience and self-denial,
grace for active benevolence,
faith to grasp eternal life,
hope to lift up my head,
love to bind me for ever
to him who died and rose for me.

May Christ’s shed blood make me
more thankful for your mercies,
more humble under your correction,
more zealous in your service,
more watchful against temptation,
more contented in my circumstances,
more useful to others.

- Puritan Prayer (adapted) from Valley of Vision: A collection of Puritan Prayers & Devotions, pg. 46

Almighty God,
You alone can bring into order the unruly wills and affections of sinners:

Grant Your people grace to love what You command
and desire what You promise;
that, among the swift and varied changes of the world,
our hearts may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found;
through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Lord God, Heavenly Father,
I consider myself Your dear child
and You my beloved Father.

Not because I deserve it,
nor could ever merit it,
but because my dear Lord,
Your only begotten Son Jesus Christ
would be my Brother.

Of His own accord
He offers and makes this blessing known to me.

Since I may consider myself His brother,
as He regards me,
You will permit me
to become and remain a child of Yours forever.
Amen.

- Martin Luther