| Holy Meditations and Prayers
After reading the following section I felt the need to pass it on so I typed it out, these are Holy Meditations and Prayers from "The marks of God's Children" by Jean Taffin.
Holy Meditations and Prayers
O almighty, all-wise, and all-gracious Lord God, we are confounded before your divine majesty not because of the troubles and extreme miseries with which we are oppressed in this time of tribulation, anxieties, and fear. Rather, we appeal to you because we have offended you by our sin, our ingratitude, and our rebellion, which have kindled your wrath against us. It especially grieves us that the ungodly and the unbelieving take occasion from your righteous judgements and punishments to blaspheme your holy name. Alas, O Lord, we condemn ourselves before you, confessing that there is no excuse for us and that we are unworthy to be called your children. Indeed, we deserve to be rejected by you. We have earned hell and to be accursed creatures forever.
But O gracious God, while we were children of wrath, your enemies and surrendered to all evil, you had compassion on us poor and wretched sinners. You turned your eyes of mercy and favor toward us. You gave your dear and beloved Son Jesus Christ to the shameful and accursed death of the cross for us. You sent us your holy gospel, that blessed and joyful message of our salvation. You accompanied the same with you Holy Spirit to enlighten us, to draw us to yourself, and to give us a share in the treasures of your kingdom and of everlasting life. You stretched out your hand from heaven into the very depths of hell to rescue and make us your blessed children. All this you did according to the good pleasure of your will, showing mercy to those to whom you were pleased to be merciful.
O Lord, should we not have recognized the day of your visitation, the day of our salvation? Should we not have acknowledged the overflowing riches of your unfathomable grace toward us in order to love you, to serve and praise and adore you, to forsake ourselves together with the world and the flesh and all that in any way is contrary to your glory? Should we not have loathed all that displeases you in order to walk as children of light and surrender ourselves completely to you, to produce fruits worthy of the gospel and appropriate to children of such a Father, to shine like flaming torches in the dark world and enlighten poor ignorant souls and draw them along with ourselves on the way to salvation?
But alas, O Lord our God, on the contrary we have taken the world and flesh along into your church. We have kept in and around us the enemies of your glory, those plagues of our souls, and made us love the earth more than heaven, the world more than your kingdom. They have made us love the filth of empty wealth more than the treasures of heaven and eternity, the aroma of human recognition more than the honorable status of being your children and brothers of your Son Jesus Christ. Covetousness, the root of every evil, has hardened our hearts to despise the poor, who are to be regarded as Jesus Christ himself by members of his church. By fraud, deception, and thievery we have disgraced your holy gospel and conducted our daily affairs like those who do not even know you. The air in the cities where your Word has been proclaimed reeks with the adultery, fornication, and other perversions that infect them. Gluttony and drunkenness have made animals of those who should have praised you for your blessing and kindness. Everyone thinks only about his own profit and advancement in the world and despises the sacred ministry and your church. The profession of the true religion has served many only as a cloak for their unrighteousness. We have put our confidence in the arm of the flesh, in broken reeds, and sought help for your church among its enemies who have forsaken the Almighty and the fountain of living water. Transgression, wickedness, slander, and iniquity have all been glossed over and covered up, which defiles your throne of righteousness without suffering the deserved penalties. Your threats and promises are ignored as idle talk, the sacred ministry of your Word despised, the chastisement your imposed on our brothers tossed into the wind without any consideration for what we deserve. We have felt no pain for your persecuted children nor mourned with them or feared your judgements.
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