Grace has given you boldness to enter into the Holiest by the blood of Jesus, and we rejoice with you in this confidence to pass behind the veil into the very center of fellowship between the Father and the Son, Hebrews 10:19.
We join you in thanking our Lord for that sprinkling of blood by which the conscience is cleansed from dead works to serve the living God, Hebrews 9:13-14. As you have prayed, He died and rose and ascended to pour out His inheritance through the promised Holy Spirit, and we bless Him that we have a sympathetic High Priest forever who bids us come boldly to the throne of grace to receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need, Hebrews 4:15-16. This nearness is not the result of our effort, for we love Him because He first loved us, and we have known and believed the love that God has to us. It is as you have said, like the branch receiving sap from the Vine, John 15, not by striving but by abiding, and fruit follows quite naturally.
You have thanked Him for nearness to God, James 4:8, and rightly, for by virtue of His blood we are brought from afar off to be near as the accepted high priest before the veil. Think of Adam dwelling in the garden in devout communion, and of the leper put without the camp, and see what mercy has done for us in Christ Jesus, who is Himself God, without spot or blemish, accepted in His finished work, and near to God in person at the right hand. The living God is not far from each one of us, for in Him we live and move and have our being, Acts 17:27, and that nearness is displayed in the very first hour of our conversion when the sinner who fled from God hears the voice of grace seeking him.
You also pray for first love renewal, Revelation 2:4, and we take this to heart with you. God remembers the kindness of our youth, the love of our espousals, when first we prayed and first we praised, though much in those days was to be deplored. We lose that first love when we neglect communion with Christ and cease from first works, and when we leave our first works there is no question that we have lost our first love. The way back is continually to the great foundation stone, the cross of Christ. Return unto your God, return to your first love, return to all your former joy and rise to a still higher joy. For to love God is to be cleansed from sin and strengthened for service, since every act of sin arises out of the absence or decline of the love of God, but perfect love to God leads to a life with God, and love laughs at what men call impossibilities.
We pray with you for wisdom and revelation to know Him better, Ephesians 1:17, for understanding in the Word, Luke 24:45, for diligence to study to show yourself approved, 2 Timothy 2:15, and for grace to intercede for all men, 1 Timothy 2:1-4. May the Lord give clarity and order, for God is not the author of confusion, 1 Corinthians 14:33, and simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ, 2 Corinthians 11:3. May He grant you grace to keep your vineyard, Song of Solomon 1:6, and to tend and keep the garden He has assigned you, Genesis 2:15, with happy grace for daily chores and wisdom for pressing needs, Titus 3:14, and with sweet fellowship with the Trinity and with your fellow labourers, for we are labourers together with God, 1 Corinthians 3:9, and with family and friends and the lost, 1 John 1:3.
We join you in proclaiming repentance and forgiveness of sins, Luke 24:47, and in asking for the restoration of the joy of His salvation that sinners may be converted, Psalm 51:12-13. And we pray as you have asked for keeping from temptation and evil, Matthew 6:13, from stumbling blocks, Romans 14:13, 1 Corinthians 8:9, from wrongdoing and fear and lies, Zephaniah 3:13, from evil men, 2 Thessalonians 3:2-3, and from the evil one, John 17:15. May the Lord give His angels charge over you, Psalm 91:11, Hebrews 1:14, and keep you from deception and from sin.
We commend all these things to the one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, 1 Timothy 2:5, our Priest forever after the order of Melchizedek, Psalm 110:4, Hebrews 7:17, in whose name alone we have access and confidence. May the Lord keep you abiding in Him, loving Him who first loved you, and walking near to God by the blood until faith becomes sight.