Prayer: Grant, Almighty God, that since it is the principal part of our happiness that in our pilgrimage through this world there is open to us a familiar access to you by faith, O grant that we may be able to come with a pure heart into your presence. And when our lips are polluted, O purify us by your Spirit, so that we may not only pray to you with the mouth but also prove that we do this sincerely, without any dissimulation, and that we earnestly seek to spend our whole life in glorifying your name; until being at length gatherer into your celestial kingdom, we may be truly and really united to you, and be made partakers of that glory, which has been brought forth for us by the blood of your only begotten Son. Amen.
John Calvin: Writings on Pastoral Piety, 244
Scripture Meditation: Eph. 2:8-10; Heb. 11:1
“Faith is a singular gift of God, both in that the mind of man is purged so as to be able to taste the truth of God, and in that his heart is established therein. For the Spirit is not only the initiator of faith, but increases it by degrees, until he leads us to the kingdom of heaven.” The Institutes of the Christian Religion, John Calvin, III.2.33
