Our Father and God, You have established Your Church as a royal priesthood in this world, and so we intercede for the nations of men now, confessing on their behalf so that the grace of Your forgiveness will soon be extended to them all.
Father, we live as Christians in an apostate nation, a nation that used to be Christian, and which, in many of the formalities, remains Christian. Father, as the remnant within this nation, we lift those vestiges up before You, and call upon You to speak them into life again. We confess, Father, that despite our unbelief as a nation, we are still obligated by our covenant commitments, and we confess our failure to live in accordance with those obligations. As we confess this sin from within this nation, we pray that You would use our confession as a means of summoning us back from our self-imposed exile.
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
. We confess that like Eve we have been too quick to listen to the lies of the serpent. Father, a nation is what You call it, and not what they call themselves. We pray that You would forgive us for this sin, and pour out a spirit of faith upon the Church.
Father, we confess our individual sins to You now—and Selah . . . We do this in the sovereign name of Jesus Christ our Lord, and amen.
YAH, the Lord, is your strength, your song, and your salvation. On the basis of His righteousness, therefore, I declare to you that your sins are forgiven through Christ.
Congregation: Thanks be to God!