Father, thank you for the grace that has preserved my life to this moment. 

 

Now give me enough love for this day—

    a sense of love from you (so I’m not scared or driven), 

    a welling up of love for you (so I’m not proud or selfish), 

    and a resulting love for others (so I am not cold or distracted). 

Let your Spirit illumine my mind and enlarge my heart for that. 

 

And because it means nothing to begin well if one does not persevere, 

    I ask that you would continue and increase your grace in me
    until you have led me into full communion with your Son 

        Jesus Christ our Lord,

    that I may see his beautiful and great glory. 

 

And as I laid down in sleep and rose this morning only by your grace,
    keep me in a joyful, lively remembrance that whatever happens, 

    I will someday know my final rising—the resurrection—

    because Jesus Christ laid down in death for me, 

    and rose for my justification. 

 

In Jesus’s name.

 

Tim Keller, 1950-2023, NYC Presbyterian Pastor and author

 

____________________________

 

 

But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, 

he saved us, 

    not because of works done by us in righteousness, 

but according to his own mercy, 

    by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, 

    whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, 

so that being justified by his grace 

    we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.