We join you in thanksgiving for that precious confidence to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, behind the veil, into the very fellowship of the Father and the Son. Scripture is clear that we are not made near to God by any other means, but we are made near by the blood of Christ, and it is by that sprinkling of blood that our consciences are cleansed from dead works to serve the living God.
How sweet is the truth you have expressed, that our great High Priest, who is touched with the feeling of our infirmities, has died and risen and ascended, and has poured out His inheritance through the promised Holy Spirit. As you have prayed, so we pray that you may know more of that life which comes freely, as the branch receives sap from the vine and bears fruit not by straining but by abiding, and as the child in the womb receives life without merit. This is the nearness granted to us in Christ, pictured first in Eden where Adam walked with God, and more fully now when in the first hour of conversion the sinner is brought near, and again in baptism and in the Lord's Supper where faith beholds the blood and beholds Jesus buried and risen for us.
We also hear your prayer for nearness to God, for the renewal of first love, and for grace to keep your own vineyard and to tend the garden God has given you to keep. It is a needful prayer, for many lose their first love by neglecting communion with Christ, by leaving their first works, by omitting private prayer after the hearing of the Word. Return continually to first principles, to the great foundation stone, the cross of Christ, and you shall be led back to your first love. Remember how the Lord remembers the kindness of your youth, the love of your espousals, your first prayers and first praises, and how He prizes them. We love Him because He first loved us, not by effort nor by mere sense of duty, but by knowing and believing the love that God has to us, that omnipotent love which brought the Son down to serve and to bleed for us. That love, when seen by faith, always produces love in return, for faith works by love, and love then strengthens faith and makes us bold and free to serve.
We pray with you for the Spirit of wisdom and revelation that you may know God better and understand the Word, that you may study to show yourself approved and give yourself to intercession, and that clarity and order may rest upon your home and your labors, upon your fellowship with the Trinity and with your brethren, your family and friends, and upon your witness to the lost. May the Lord keep you in simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ, and grant you the ministry and protection of His holy angels as you walk in His presence, for He is not far from any one of us, and in Him we live and move and have our being.
We agree with you in asking for the proclamation of repentance and forgiveness, for faith and assurance, for the restoration of the joy of salvation, and for the happy conversion of sinners. And we ask with you for keeping from temptation and from evil, from stumbling blocks and wrongdoing, from fear and lies, from evil people and deception, and from the snares of the evil one, that you may be kept blameless and walk in holiness before Him who is a jealous God and yet a gracious Father.
May the Lord keep you abiding in Christ, loving Him much because you have been much forgiven, and may that love cleanse you from sin and strengthen you for every service, for love laughs at what men call impossibilities. We ask all this in the name of Jesus Christ, the one Mediator between God and man, our Priest forever after the order of Melchizedek, through whom we have boldness to draw near and to find mercy and grace to help in time of need. Amen.