Text: Hebrews 4:14-16
As we gather today for our last day of confession, let’s really take to heart these verses from Hebrews.
We are not praying to some stoic being who sits on a cloud. We are not confessing to a god who wields his power without emotion, who looks down with pity and disgust on the lowly humans he created.
We pray to the One who not only knows us, He knows what it’s like to be us. He knows because He lived it. And not only did He live, He died a real death with real pain, with real blood and sweat and tears, with real love in His real heart, to make you and me real daughters of the only true God.
Whoosh. Does it get more intense and more intensely beautiful than that?
Let’s go to Him together in confession, trusting that what He says is true.
Prayer: Yet I Sin
“Eternal Father,
Thou art good beyond all thought,
But I am vile, wretched, miserable, blind;
My lips are ready to confess, but my heart is slow to feel,
and my ways reluctant to amen.
I bring my soul to thee;
break it, wound it, bend it, mould it.
Unmask to me sin’s deformity,
that I may hate it, abhor it, flee from it.
My faculties have been a weapon of revolt against thee;
as a rebel I have misused my strength,
and served the foul adversary of thy kingdom.
Give me grace to bewail my insensate folly
Grant me to know that the way of transgressors is hard,
that evil paths are wretched paths,
that to depart from thee is to lose all good.
I have seen the purity and beauty of thy perfect law,
the happiness of those in whose heart it reigns,
the calm dignity of the walk to which it calls,
yet I daily violate and condemn its precepts.
Thy loving Spirit strives within me,
brings me Scripture warnings,
speaks in startling providences,
allures by secret whispers,
yet I choose devices and desires to my own hurt,
impiously resent, grieve,
and provoke him to abandon me.
All these sins I mourn, lament, and for them cry pardon.
Work in me more profound and abiding repentance;
Give me the fullness of a godly grief that trembles and fears,
yet ever trusts and loves,
which is ever powerful, and ever confident;
Grant that through the tears of repentance I may see more clearly
the brightness and glories of the saving cross.”
from The Valley of Vision: A collection of Puritan prayers and devotions, ©2001, The Banner of Truth Trust, p.70.
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Thank you, sisters, for sharing your beautiful stories of repentance and forgiveness. What great reminders that our Lord does truly set us free from our sins!
Wow. Even as I sit here, I struggle with the sin I've committed even this morning and giving it up to God. Lord, break my heart for how I've broken yours, and let me see the truth of what my sin leads to. I need YOU and no one else. In this reality of what sin is, Lord, I pray I'd only run to your arms. Forgive me, here Lord, for being undisciplined in my fast for you this morning, and for succumbing to fear and wanting control instead of submitting all to you and trusting in you. I know that this separates me from you, and that "the way of transgressors is hard, that evil paths are wretched paths, and that to depart from thee is to lose all good." Help me to truly see what this means so that as I cry out to you for deliverance, your work on the cross would be made more profound and new in me. Praise you.
Work in me more profound and abiding repentance;
Give me the fullness of a godly grief that trembles and fears,
yet ever trusts and loves,
which is ever powerful, and ever confident;
Gosh yes. I long for the fullness of a godly grief…the full knowledge of the awfulness of my sin. And yet, may I ever trust and love the Lord, being confident in His power, because I know that the awfulness of my sin does not separate me from Him because of Christ's work on the Cross!
Sisters, I just have to say that I love this community of God chasers! The prayer of confession today hit home with me as it did with so many others. My prayer is simple, I only ask that God would allow me to put on the glasses that He had prescribed because my vision is sin-blurry. I want to see and recognize clearly my offences to Him and lay it all at the altar. May we all intercede on each other's behalf.