Valley of Vision: Descending Grace

O Lord,
No day of my life has passed that has not proved me guilty in your sight.

Prayers have been uttered from a prayerless heart.
Praise has been often praiseless sound.
My best services are filthy rags.

But though my sins rise to heaven, your merits soar above them;
Though unrighteousness weighs me down to hell, your righteousness exalts me to your throne.
All things in me call for my rejection,
All things in you plead my acceptance.
I appeal from the throne of perfect justice to your throne of boundless grace.

Grant me to hear your voice assuring me:
That by you stripes I am healed;
That you were bruised for my iniquities;
That you have been made sin for me;
That I might be righteous in you;
That my grievous sins, my manifold sins, are all forgiven,
Buried in the ocean of your concealing blood.

I am guilty, but pardoned,
Lost, but saved,
Wandering, but found,
Sinning, but cleansed.

Give me perpetual broken-heartedness.
Keep me always clinging to your cross.
Flood me every moment with descending grace.

Adapted from Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions