Father God, Almighty God, we come before You now as citizens of a nation that has sought out many high places, and which has bowed down before many idols. We confess this sin of our people to You, and ask You to be merciful. We ask You to grant a great reformation, with the result that all false gods, and the complications and clutter they bring with them, are all swept away. Father, we are asking that our nation be delivered, not from a neutral secularism, but rather from a grievous idolatry.
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 as Your people, called by Your name, we have not been clear enough in identifying idolatry as idolatry. It seems like an ancient problem to us, Father, and not the pressing and immediate problem it actually is. Forgive for this, we pray.
Father, we confess our own compromises with idolatry to You now—and Selah . . . We pray this in the strong name of Jesus, and amen.
God has set before you this day a very great blessing. This is right at the center of the new covenant—the promise of forgiveness of sin. You have heard the promise, and responded through honest confession. Therefore—I declare to you that your sins are forgiven through Christ.
Congregation: Thanks be to God!