Father, Your Word calls us to speak without deceitful lips. And yet our sinful nation, which has so much sin to confess, does not even bother to confess sin falsely. We think that we have no sin, not as sin is defined in Your Word. And it is at just this point that Your Word tells us that if we say this, that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. Forgive our nation for this we pray.
We know, Father, that if we in the Church regard iniquity in our own midst, or in our own hearts, this prayer will be ineffectual.
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And Father, we confess that in the Church we have failed to declare the only standard capable of defining sin, and bringing the nations into an awareness of sin. Forgive us this failure, we ask.
Father, we confess individual sins to You now—and Selah . . . We do this in the strong name of Jesus, and amen.
The Lord loves righteousness, and He certainly loves the righteousness that He has established in you through forgiveness of sin. He has heard your cry, and so through the blood of the gospel, and as a minister of Christ, I declare that your sins are forgiven through Christ.
Congregation: Thanks be to God!