It is a good and right thing that you have begun this day with thanksgiving and with the prayer our Lord Himself taught us to pray. With a staple commodity withdrawn or with peril at our gates we should soon feel our dependence, shall we not then bless and praise our Covenant God who permits not the appointed mercies to fail, but loads us daily with His benefits and gives us this day our daily bread.
You have done well to take upon your lips those holy words, Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name, Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. This prayer, which may be called the holy of holies of the Word of God, gathers up our Lord's desire for His people. In it we are taught first to hallow the Father's name, to seek His kingdom and His will, and then to bring our own need before Him as children who trust a Father's hand for bread, for pardon, and for keeping.
How needful are those petitions, Give us today our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. Are we any of us sufficiently grateful for our daily provisions, for talents and faculties and friends, all the daily gifts of Divine charity. Many receive their mercies as if they came in at the back door and never acknowledge them at the front door with grateful praise. Your thanksgiving turns the mercies of the morning into worship, and that is fitting, for inward emotions of gratitude are the crowning thanksgiving. O come, let us worship and bow down, let us come into His presence with the voice of joy and thanksgiving.
And what a mercy is contained in that one plea for forgiveness. There is forgiveness with Him, that He may be feared. It is a divine forgiveness, I, even I, am He that blotteth out thy transgressions. It is a complete forgiveness and an eternal forgiveness, not for this sin or for that only, but there is forgiveness freely given for Christ's sake to all who trust in Him. He not only forgave us at the first, but He continues daily to forgive, for the act of forgiveness is continuous to those who are in Christ Jesus. Would Christ have put these words into your mouth, Forgive us our debts, if there were no pardon to be had. There is, and it is found with God alone, through the blood of His dear Son.
Take heed then to pray that prayer with its full meaning. The very prayer that teaches you to ask for mercy bids you say, as we forgive our debtors. Unless we have forgiven others we read our own condemnation when we repeat those words. Some of us have had so much manifest forgiveness, so much outward sin forgiven, that for us to forgive ought to be as natural as to open our hands. May the Lord work in you that sanctifying grace which His Son prayed for, Sanctify them through Thy truth, Thy word is truth, that you may walk in holiness and in love toward others, abiding in Christ and so abiding in union with His people.
We join our prayer with yours today. May the Father hallow His name in your heart, may His kingdom come more fully in your life, may His will be done in you as it is done in heaven, may He supply your daily bread from His own hand, may He assure you of full and free pardon through Jesus Christ our Lord, and keep you from falling, and present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy. To Him be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen.
