This beautiful prayer from Charles Spurgeon is a powerful, powerful word. Take time today to find a quiet spot and read through it attentively. Let the words soak in. Read it more than once and feel free to come back to it in the days ahead. Let it minister to you!
Dear Saviour, we come to you as beggars, dependent on your heavenly charity. You are a Saviour, always looking out for those that need saving. And here we are, and here we come, the men and women you are looking for, men and women needing a Saviour.
Great Physician,
We bring to you our wounds and bruises. The more diseased we are and the more conscious we are of the depravity of our nature, of the deep-seated corruption of our hearts, the more we feel that we are the sort of beings that you are seeking, for the whole have no need of a doctor, but only those who are sick.
Glorious Benefactor,
We can meet you on good terms, for we are full of poverty – as empty as we can be. Since you would display your mercy—here is our sin. Since you would show your strength – here is our weakness. Since you would manifest your loving-kindness – here are our needs. Since you would glorify your grace – here we are, people who can never have a shadow of a hope except through your grace. For we are undeserving, ill-deserving, hell-deserving, and if you do not magnify your grace in us we must perish for ever.
It is sweet to come to you in this way. If we had to come telling you of the good in us, we would question whether we were flattering ourselves. But, Lord Jesus, we come just as we are. This is how we first came to you, and this is how we still come, with all our failures, with all our transgressions, with all and everything that is what it ought not to be, we come to you. We bless you that you receive us and our wounds, and by your stripes we are healed. You receive us and our sins, and by your sin-bearing we are set free from sin. You receive us and our death – even our death for you are the one who was dead and is alive, alive for evermore.
We come and lie at your feet, obedient to your call: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11 v 28).
Let us feel sweet rest, since we come at your invitation. May some come that have never come until now. May others consciously come again, coming to you as to a living stone, chosen of God and precious, to build our everlasting hopes upon.
May we who love you, love you much more. You have been precious to us, your name has been music to our ears, and your love to us is inexpressibly strong. WE have felt that we would gladly die to increase your honour. We have been willing to lose our reputation that you might be glorified, and yet we do not always feel this passionate love. With all the capacity that there is in us, may we love our Lord in spirit and in truth.
Charles Spurgeon
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