Father, we bow before You now in confession, acknowledging that You are in fact the God who tests the minds and hearts of all men. We pray as part of a sinful generation, one which believes that You do not see all things, and that You cannot read the thoughts and intentions of the heart. Help us to confess this sin to You, and turn our nation back to the realization that You are the God who sees to the bottom of all things. Forgive us all for forgetting that You are the omniscient one.
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.
Â
And so we also pray that You would make us mindful of the ways in which we suppress our knowledge of how exhaustive and searching Your gaze is. We would live before You honestly, and we pray that You would forgive this neglect of ours, so that we might begin to live as uprightly as we ought.
And Father, we confess our individual sins to You now—and Selah . . . We do this in the great name of Jesus Christ, and amen.
It is through the Lord’s mercy that we are not consumed. It is through the Lord’s mercy that we have forgiveness through the Lord’s blood. On that basis, I now declare to you that your sins are forgiven through Christ.
Congregation: Thanks be to God!