Chrysostom
Beloved of All
We join you in thanking the Lord Jesus Christ for the blood by which we have confidence to enter the holiest place behind the veil. What you have prayed is at the very heart of the gospel, that by His dying and rising and ascending He has poured out His inheritance through the promised Holy Spirit, and that our hearts are sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed so that we may draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith.
Scripture shows that this confidence is not faith alone in word, but faith lived out with a pure conscience and a virtuous life. The holy of holies receives those who are made holy, and it does not receive those who remain careless in conscience. As you prayed from 1 Timothy 1:5, the goal of our teaching is love from a purified heart, a faith with no contradiction, and a conscience that has no charge against it. That is the testimony of a good conscience, that in simplicity and sincerity and not in fleshly wisdom but in the grace of God we conduct ourselves in the world. When the conscience has nothing to condemn, then there is true glorying and true confidence before God.
We also hear your desire to hold fast this confidence firm to the end. We are His house if we hold fast our confidence and the rejoicing of our hope firm to the end. The one who is distressed and falls, who hides himself in shame or is perplexed, does not have this confidence. But the one who walks with a clean conscience, who studies to rightly handle the word of truth and who seeks wisdom to know and do the will of God, enjoys greater confidence than even Adam before his sin, because we have greater grace through the supply of the Spirit and a sympathetic High Priest who understands our weakness.
So we pray with you and for you:
Heavenly Father, we thank You for the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus that cleanses our conscience from dead works to serve the living God, and for the open way into Your presence through Christ our High Priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek, the one Mediator between God and man. Grant to this dear one nearness to You as they draw near to You, renewal of first love, grace to tend the garden You have entrusted to them, and the Spirit of wisdom and revelation to know You better and to understand Your Word from cover to cover. Grant clarity and order, simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ, strength in the inner being to comprehend the breadth and length and height and depth of Christ's love, wisdom to know Your will and to walk in a manner worthy of You, and power to make and accomplish needed plans and to bear fruit that remains. Grant happy grace for daily work, fellowship with You and with Your people, faith and assurance, and the joy of forgiveness that overflows in calling others to repentance.
Keep them from temptation and from evil, from stumbling blocks and from every form of deception, wrongdoing, fear and lies, and from the evil one himself. Guard them by Your angelic protection and keep their conscience tender and pure before You, so that they may continue with full assurance and rejoicing in hope.
We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through faith in Him. Amen.
Scripture shows that this confidence is not faith alone in word, but faith lived out with a pure conscience and a virtuous life. The holy of holies receives those who are made holy, and it does not receive those who remain careless in conscience. As you prayed from 1 Timothy 1:5, the goal of our teaching is love from a purified heart, a faith with no contradiction, and a conscience that has no charge against it. That is the testimony of a good conscience, that in simplicity and sincerity and not in fleshly wisdom but in the grace of God we conduct ourselves in the world. When the conscience has nothing to condemn, then there is true glorying and true confidence before God.
We also hear your desire to hold fast this confidence firm to the end. We are His house if we hold fast our confidence and the rejoicing of our hope firm to the end. The one who is distressed and falls, who hides himself in shame or is perplexed, does not have this confidence. But the one who walks with a clean conscience, who studies to rightly handle the word of truth and who seeks wisdom to know and do the will of God, enjoys greater confidence than even Adam before his sin, because we have greater grace through the supply of the Spirit and a sympathetic High Priest who understands our weakness.
So we pray with you and for you:
Heavenly Father, we thank You for the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus that cleanses our conscience from dead works to serve the living God, and for the open way into Your presence through Christ our High Priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek, the one Mediator between God and man. Grant to this dear one nearness to You as they draw near to You, renewal of first love, grace to tend the garden You have entrusted to them, and the Spirit of wisdom and revelation to know You better and to understand Your Word from cover to cover. Grant clarity and order, simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ, strength in the inner being to comprehend the breadth and length and height and depth of Christ's love, wisdom to know Your will and to walk in a manner worthy of You, and power to make and accomplish needed plans and to bear fruit that remains. Grant happy grace for daily work, fellowship with You and with Your people, faith and assurance, and the joy of forgiveness that overflows in calling others to repentance.
Keep them from temptation and from evil, from stumbling blocks and from every form of deception, wrongdoing, fear and lies, and from the evil one himself. Guard them by Your angelic protection and keep their conscience tender and pure before You, so that they may continue with full assurance and rejoicing in hope.
We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through faith in Him. Amen.
