O Lord, I beseech You to draw near
to me this day in Your great mercy. I have the near prospect of approaching
You at Your gracious Sacramental Ordinance. As You are preparing for me a
table in the wilderness, do prepare me for the table. O send forth Your
light and Your truth, let them lead me—let them bring me unto Your holy hill
and unto Your tabernacles. Then will I go unto the Altar of God, unto God my
exceeding joy. May it be my experience within the gates of the Sanctuary,
and while partaking of the Sacred Feast—"This is none other than the House
of God, this is the Gate of heaven,"—"I have seen the King, the Lord
Almighty."
Fill me with a humbling sense of my own demerits and
shortcomings. I am not worthy to eat of the crumbs which fall from the
Master's Table; how much less to be seated at the banqueting Table itself,
and to enjoy the blessedness of near and endearing fellowship with You.
Come, Lord, and search me—Come and try me—Come and see if there be any
wicked way in me; and lead me in the way everlasting. Impart, above all, an
inspiring and elevating sense of Your great and infinite love to me in
Christ Jesus. At this, His own commemorative Ordinance, may I have a
realizing apprehension of all that mystery of agony and suffering He so
willingly endured for me. May the near sight of Gethsemane and Calvary give
me deeper and intenser views of the exceeding sinfulness of sin, as that
which filled His cup of anguish. May I be enabled, as I go afresh to this
covenanting ground—not only to confess my sins, but to have the hearty
desire and resolution to forsake them; and to live, in the time to come, not
unto myself—but unto Him who loved me and gave Himself for me, that He might
redeem me from all iniquity, and purify me unto Himself, as one of His own
peculiar people, zealous of good works.
My earnest prayer is, to be brought more constantly and
habitually under the constraining influence of redeeming love—that the life
You have preserved by Your mercy, and which You have ransomed at such a
price, may be henceforth consecrated to Your praise. May the blessed Feast
prove a hallowed means of strengthening within me every Christian grace, and
of confirming every good resolution. May this be my earnest aspiration,
'Lord, evermore give me this Bread.' Like Your servant of old, in the
strength of that food, may I go on, from day to day, until I reach the true
mount of God above.
Bestow Your blessing on all my fellow-communicants. There
is bread enough in our Father's house and to spare. May those who through
sickness and other restraints of Your providence, are unable to go to the
Courts of Your Sanctuary, know that You are not confined to temples or to
tables made with hands—that wherever there is a true worshiper, there, there
is a prayer-hearing—a prayer-answering—a covenant-keeping God. May those who
tarry at home divide the spoil.
Bless Your ministering servants who are to be this day
the dispensers of the Holy rite. As they deal the Bread of Life to others,
may their own souls be abundantly satisfied. Let Your priests be clothed
with righteousness, and let Your saints shout for joy. The Lord bless the
House of Israel—the Lord bless the House of Aaron—both small and great that
fear the Lord, do You surely bless them. So may this appointed Ordinance
prove, to each and all of us, a season of reviving and refreshing from Your
own immediate presence.
And all I ask, or hope for, is in the name and for the
sake of Jesus Christ, my only Lord and Savior. Amen.