Thanksgiving: The Blood-Sprinkled Mercy-Seat

The Blood-Besprinkled Mercy Seat

O God Most High, the one God of Israel, we are longing to adore Thee. Adoration will be the employment of heaven. It is certainly our greatest enjoyment on earth. But we are not worthy to come unto Thy presence, or to present to Thee the vials of our praises. We would therefore, first, in lowly reverence, make confession of our state and of our guilt. We are fallen creatures, even by nature, and as our nature, such has our life been. We have come short of the glory of God and have offended in many things. We dare not look up apart from the way which Thou has provided for our uplooking, even through the Mediator, Jesus Christ. O God, if Thou hadst driven us long ago from Thy presence, and hadst forbidden us to think of worship, what could we have said? How shall we dare to tread Thy courts on the ground of merit; for surely if Thou should lay Thy justice to the line, and Thy righteousness to the plummet, there is not one of us that could stand?

O Lord, we thank Thee for the Atonement, for the great expiatory Sacrifice. So would we compass Thine altar, O God. We come sprinkled with the blood to a blood-sprinkled Mercy Seat, and we are not afraid to come when we can make mention of the Righteousness of Christ and His Atonement. We feel that we are reconciled unto God by the death of His Son. Lord, let a sweet sense of pardon and perfect cleansing rest upon the hearts of Thy people. May those who have never yet come to Thee for mercy, look to Jesus and be saved; and may those of us who long ago were washed in the Fountain filled with blood, now receive the foot washing which Jesus daily gives, and, being cleansed every whit, may we be able to come with our adoration into the presence of the Eternal God. Amen.