Call to Worship
Receive God’s gracious call to worship.
Then I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach to those who dwell on the earth—to every nation, tribe, tongue, and people—saying with a loud voice, “Fear God and give glory to Him, for the hour of His judgment has come; and worship Him who made heaven and earth, the sea and springs of water.” (Revelation 14:6–7)
Adoration
Offer this praise to God:
Blessed be the love which chose us before the world began. We can never sufficiently adore You for Your sovereignty, the sovereignty of love which saw us in the ruins of the Fall, yet loved us notwithstanding all.
We praise the God of the Eternal Council Chamber and of the Everlasting Covenant, but where shall we find sufficiently fit words with which to praise Him who gave us grace in Christ His Son, before He spread the starry sky.
We also bless You, O God, as the God of our redemption, for You have so loved us as to give even Your dear Son for us. He gave Himself, His very life for us that He might redeem us from all iniquity and separate us unto Himself to be His peculiar people, zealous for good works. Never can we sufficiently adore free grace and dying love. The wonders of Calvary never cease to be wonders, they are growingly marvellous in our esteem as we think of Him who washed us from our sins in His own blood.
Nor can we cease to praise the God of our regeneration who found us dead and made us live, found us at enmity and reconciled us,
found us loving the things of this world and lifted us out of the slough and mire of selfishness and worldliness into the love of divine everlasting things.
O Spirit of God, we love You this day, especially for dwelling in us. How can You abide in so rude a habitation. How can You make these bodies to be Your temples, and yet You do so, for which let Your name be had in reverence so long as we live.
O Lord, we would delight ourselves in You this day. Give us faith and love and hope that with these three graces we may draw very near to the Triune God.
The Law
Hear God’s perfect requirements.
And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways and to love Him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments of the Lord and His statutes which I command you today for your good? (Deuteronomy 10:12–13)
Confession of Sin
Confess and repent of sins before God.
We adore You because You are holy, and we love You for Your infinite perfection.
For now we sigh and cry after holiness ourselves. Sanctify us wholly, spirit, soul and body. Lord, we mourn over the sins of our past life and our present shortcomings. We bless You — You have forgiven us; we are reconciled to You by the death of Your Son.
There are many who know that they have been washed, and that He that bears away sin has borne their sin away. These are they who now cry to You to be delivered from the power of sin, to be delivered from the power of temptation without, but especially from indwelling sin within.
Lord, purify us in head, heart and hand; and if it be needful that we should be put into the fire to be refined as silver is refined, we would even welcome the fire if we may be rid of the dross.
Lord, save us from personal sin, from sins of temperament, from sins of our surroundings. Save us from ourselves in every shape, and grant us especially to have the light of love strong within us.
May we love God; may we love You, O Savior; may we love the people of God as being members of one body in connection with You.
May we love the guilty world with that love which desires its salvation and conversion; and may we love not in word only, but in deed and in truth.
May we help the helpless, comfort the mourner, sympathize with the widow and fatherless, and may we be always ready to put up with wrong, to be long suffering, to be very patient, full of forgiveness, counting it a small thing that we should forgive our fellow-men since we have been forgiven of God.
Lord, tune our hearts to love, and then give us an inward peace, a restfulness about everything.
Assurance of Pardon
Hear the promise of grace:
Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them. (Ezekiel 36:25–27)
Praise
Offer this praise to God:
For I proclaim the name of the Lord: Ascribe greatness to our God. He is the Rock, His work is perfect; For all His ways are justice, A God of truth and without injustice; Righteous and upright is He. (Deuteronomy 32:3–4)
Creed
Testify what you believe of Christian truth:
Yet for us there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we for Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and through whom we live. (1 Corinthians 8:6)
Catechism
Learn from Spurgeon’s catechism.
23. How does Christ execute the office of a prophet?
A. Christ executes the office of a prophet, in revealing to us (Jhn 1:18), by his Word (Jhn 20:31), and Spirit (Jhn 14:26), the will of God for our salvation.
24. How does Christ execute the office of a priest?
A. Christ executes the office of a priest, in his once offering up himself a sacrifice to satisfy divine justice (Hbr 9:28), and to reconcile us to God (Hbr 2:17), and in making continual intercession for us (Hbr 7:25).
25. How does Christ execute the office of a king?
A. Christ executes the office of a king in subduing us to himself, (Psa 110:3) in ruling and defending us (Mat 2:6; 1Cr 15:25), and in restraining and conquering all his and our enemies.
Prayer for Illumination
Ask for spiritual understanding before reading God’s Word:
Lord, we want to live while we live. We do pray that we may not merely groan out an existence here below, nor live as earthworms crawling back in and out of our holes… but oh! give us to live as we ought to live, with a new life that You have put into us, with the divine quickening which has lifted us as much above common men as men are lifted above the beasts that perish. Do not let us always be hampered like poor half-hatched birds within the egg; may we chip the shell today and get out into the glorious liberty of the children of God. Grant us this, we pray You.
Lord, visit our churches. We have heard Your message to the churches at Ephesus; it is a message to us also. Oh! do not let any of us lose our first love. Let not our churches grow cold and dead.
We are not, we fear, what once we were. Lord, revive us! All our help must come from You. Give back to the church its love, its confidence, its holy daring, its consecration, its liberality, its holiness.
Scripture Reading
Read Scripture with dependence and a desire to obey.
Day 9: Psalm 121 (The Lord is Your Keeper)
Prayer of Intercession
Make your requests with thanksgiving, and pray this prayer.
Lord, bless the work of the Church and all its branches; and let Your kingdom come into the hearts of multitudes by its means.
Remember all churches that are really at work for Jesus, and all private individuals, workers alone, workers by themselves. Let the Lord’s own name be made known by tens of thousands. Give the Word, and great may be the multitude of them that publish it. Let all this, our beloved country, know Christ, and come to His feet; let the dark places of this country be enlightened with the sweet name of Jesus. And then let the heathen know You, and the uttermost parts of the earth hear of You.
Oh! from the tree declare You Your salvation, and from the throne let it be published in proclamations of a king. “Let the people praise You, O God; yea, let all the people praise You.”
Benediction
Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen. (Eph. 3:20-21 )
Colleen
So uplifting, so encouraging, so thought provoking, so personally meaningful, so edifying……….