Word of Encouragement (06/24/2022)

An evening prayer of John Baillie's as we finish this week:

“O DIVINE Father, your mercy is always waiting for those who return to you in true humility and repentance of heart. So I ask you now to hear this humble seeker who needs your help. How confidently I set out this morning into the life of a new day; now I lie down ashamed and burdened with memories of things undone that ought to have been done and things done that ought not to have been done. Bring me afresh, O God, your healing and cleansing power, so that again I may take hold of the salvation which you have offered to me through Jesus Christ my Lord.

Have mercy upon me, O God—

for my deceitful heart and crooked thoughts;

for harsh words spoken deliberately;

for thoughtless words spoken hastily;

for envious and prying eyes;

for ears that rejoice in what is wrong, and do not rejoice in the truth;

for greedy hands;

for feet that have been lazy and gone into the wrong places;

for proud and disdainful looks.

If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

“Almighty God, Spirit of purity and grace, in asking your forgiveness I cannot claim a right to be forgiven by can only cast myself on your boundless love.

I can plead no merit of my own;

I can plead no extenuating circumstance;

I cannot plead the frailty of my nature;

I cannot plead the force of the temptations I encounter;

I cannot plead the pressure of others who led me astray;

I can only say, for the sake of Jesus Christ, your Son, my Lord. Amen.”

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