Worship

Chris and I have been graciously blessed beyond measure with Christ-centered, God-exalting church families in each of the 4 states we have lived in since 2002! (To listen to a GREAT sermon from Father's Day last week that will encourage you in your parenting, click here.) Not only have we continually been fed God's Word with great preaching, but we have been truly led in worshiping our Savior each Sunday through Christ-centered, doctrinally rich music and corporate liturgy. This morning before we observed the Lord's Supper, we were led in this prayer of confession from The Valley of Vision. Some things hit home so poignantly.

O God of grace, You have imputed our sins to our Substitute, and have imputed His righteousness to our souls, clothing us with a bridegroom's robe, decking us with jewels of holiness. But in our Christian walk we are still in rags; our best prayers are stained with sin; our penitential tears are so much impurity; our confessions of wrong are so incomplete; our receiving the Spirit is so tainted with selfishness.

I need to repent of my repentance; I need my tears to be washed; I have no robe to bring to cover my sins, no loom to weave my own righteousness; I am always standing clothed in filthy garments, and by grace am always receiving change of raiment, for You do always justify the ungodly; I am always going into the far country, and always returning home as a prodigal, always saying, 'Father, forgive me,' and You are always bringing forth the best robe.

Every morning let us wear it, every evening return in it, go out to the day's work in it, be married in it, be wound in death in it, stand before the great white throne in it, enter heaven in it shining as the sun.

Grant me never to lose sight of the exceeding sinfulness of sin, the exceeding righteousness of salvation, the exceeding glory of Christ, the exceeding beauty of holiness, the exceeding wonders of grace.