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 are glad that You are the God who forgives, and we come before you now in great need of that forgiveness. Our people have walked away from Your statutes and laws, and we have fashioned idols carved from our own fancies. Grant a spirit of repentance to this nation, Father, such that all the high places are removed. We confess the halfway compromises that made these full compromises possible, and we ask You to restore us as a nation.
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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.
Father, we confess that the Church has not testified faithfully against the construction of the high places, and we have bent our heads in a cowardly way whenever we have been called upon to be a faithful witness. But You have not given us a spirit of timidity, and so we ask You to strengthen our weak knees, and lift our drooping hands. We confess our cowardice as sin, Father.
And Father, we confess our own private sins to You now—and Selah . . . We do this in the glorious name of Jesus, and amen.
Hear the forgiveness of Your God declared. You have confessed before God, and You have received His kind offer made possible through Jesus Christ crucified. And so I declare that your sins are forgiven through Christ.
Congregation: Thanks be to God!