Psalms 25:22

REFLECTIONS

READER, let us never lose sight of Christ, as Jesus, the Christ of God and our appointed High Priest; in all the fervent prayers we meet with in the written word: for as we cannot pray profitably without his Spirit helping us, so neither can our prayers ever come up before God and our Father unless presented with an eye to Jesus, and his finished salvation, and by him as our great Intercessor.

But, blessed Jesus! who is it that thus addresses the Father but thee? Who is enabled to lift his heart to God but thee? Thou thyself hast graciously taught us, that without thee we can do nothing. Do thou, therefore, gracious Lord, both teach us how to pray, how to appear before thee in the way that thou shalt choose, and how to lift up our whole heart's affections and desires after thee; for thou art the Lord our righteousness. And as God our Father pardoned all the sins of thy redeemed, though they were heavy, great, and grievous, because thou didst bear them all, and take them as thine own; so, Lord, for thy great name's sake, pardon ours, notwithstanding their heavy nature, and the many provocations with which they have been marked. Precious Jesus! may our souls find confidence in the blessed hope that, as thou wert made sin for us, when thou knewest no sin, so thou hast redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in thee: and art made of God to us, wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption, that he that glorieth may glory in the Lord.