Friday, Week 7

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.
— Matthew 6:13 (BSB)

Is the prayer of my lips really the prayer of my life?
— Andrew Murray

O God, who alone can give the hearing ear and the understanding heart — open our minds that we may understand Your word which we have read. Make the truth plain and clear to us. Save us from handling Your word selfishly — from wresting it from its true meaning to serve any purpose of our own. Help us to find in it, always what Your Spirit meant us to find. Grant us grace to search the Scriptures diligently, and to find in them . . .
Your holy will,
the revealing of Your truth,
the unveiling of Jesus,
Your precepts for the guidance of our lives.

May Your word be a lamp to our feet, and a light to our path. May it show us the shoe-prints of our Master who has gone before us, that we may walk in His steps. We thank You for all that the Bible is to us, for its words which assure us of Your love for us, and which mark out for us the only way to our heavenly home. We thank You for the wonderful promises in the Bible, covering every moment of life, every possible need, every condition of peril or trial. We thank You for the comforts of Your word, that in our sorrow we can always find consolation.

We ask You to teach us Your ways, to take away the veil, that we may understand Your word. May the Bible, as its truths enter into our souls, transform and transfigure our lives, and make them shine with something of Your own holiness. May the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us.

Bless Your word to the world. Wherever it is taught or preached, may its divine light break forth and help to brighten the world. Help us to do something to diffuse Your truth among men. And to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit — be all honor, and glory, world without end. Amen.