Father of all mercies, we ask You to forgive us in accordance with all Your mercies, and not in accordance with what we deserve. We confess to You that as a nation, we have wanted to earn some measure of our standing before You, and so we ask You to pour out upon our people a real understanding of what salvation grace actually means. Help to understand our need for free and full forgiveness by making us recognize that we don’t deserve any of it.
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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Father, we confess that although we are a justified people, we have not emphasized the imputed righteousness of Christ, and have instead focused on the results of that free justification. We pray for Your forgiveness for this, and we pray that we would be set upon our feet to walk in the light of Your grace.
Father, we confess our own failures to You now—and Selah . . . We pray this in the great name of Jesus, and amen.
Give thanks to the Lord, because His mighty acts will be declared from generation to generation. Among those mighty acts is the forgiveness that He has gloriously determined to settle upon you. And so therefore I declare to you that your sins are forgiven through Christ.
Congregation: Thanks be to God!