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 and God, You are the God of all grace, and we confess to You that we struggle with accepting Your grace on its own terms. We confess to You the sin of striving and earning and calculating and bookkeeping. Father, You have secured forgiveness for us in the cross of Jesus Christ, and You Spirit summons us to simply accept Your full and free forgiveness. We confess, Father, that we often struggle with accepting this forgiveness for sin because we don’t want the resultant liberation from sin. Forgive us for this as well, 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.
And this means, Father, that the world does not understand the import of grace because we do not live in terms of Your grace within the Church. Forgive us our unbelief, we pray. Help us by Your Spirit to walk in accordance with the forgiveness You promise.
We confess our sins to You now—and Selah . . . We do this in the powerful name of Jesus Christ, and amen.
You have come to God in all humility. You have bowed your hearts and heads. You have confessed Your sins. Therefore, as a minister of God’s everlasting grace, I declare to you that your sins are forgiven through Christ.
Congregation: Thanks be to God!