Prayer to enter Worship

(This prayer is an adopted prayer of Charles Spurgeon.)

Heavenly Father, grant rest to your children as we come into your presence. Take the helmet from our brow. Take from us the weight of our heavy armour for a while, may we know your peace, and be at rest in you. Come to our aid and help us we plead. 

As You have already washed your people in that fountain filled with blood so that we are cleansed from every guilty stain, so now today wash us with water through the Word to make us holy. Come to us as You came to the disciples and wash our feet again. Refresh our hearts in your presence; prepare us for sweet fellowship with yourself. As the high priests washed before entering the Holy of Holies, so wash us as we now approach your throne, that nothing may hinder our prayers, and we may be free to worship you acceptably, with reverence and awe, in spirit and in truth.

Lord Jesus, take from us now everything that would hinder the closest communion with the Father. Any wish or desire that may hamper us in prayer, remove it, we pray. Any memory of either sorrow or care that would preoccupy us and so hinder us from setting our affection wholly on you, take it away now. 

You know where the difficulty, the blockage, the bondage lies. Help us against it, deliver us from it, so may we come boldly into the Holy of Holies, into your immediate presence, and into that place where we would not dare to come if the temple curtain was not torn in two, and if did not Christ sprinkle the mercy seat with his own blood, and called us to enter in.

Our God, we are yours. You are ours. We are now united together with you in our concern for the business of Heaven. We are enlisted together in the same army for the fighting of one battle, not against flesh and blood but against the principalities and powers. And the battle belongs to you. Fight for us and we will win. Uphold us and we shall not fall.

Come, Holy Spirit, more fully take possession of us, fill us continually, hover over our disordered lives, and bring order out of our chaos and confusion. Bring perfection in holiness, make us completely dead to sin, alive to righteousness, and fully devoted to Christ. Take us body, soul, and spirit, take all that we have and are, make us your own, and use us for your glory, for Jesus’ sake, Amen.