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.
Our Father and God, we know that if You were to start marking iniquities, holding our sins against us, not one of us would be able to stand before You. We know that we have sin to confess, and that without Your mercy, we cannot even do that right. We know that apart from the work of Your Spirit, even our confession of sin will simply incur more sin. We confess that this is why our nation is not received by You—we do not confess our sins, and when we do confess them, we do so improperly and in our own name, in accordance with our own schemes.
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 so, Father, we confess that we Your people have not modeled confession of sin properly. We confess that we feel guilty for things that are not sins, and that we pass lightly over things which are. Help us restore a true humility in the Church before a watching world.
And so now we acknowledge and confess our individual sins to You—Selah . . . We do this in the wonderful name of Jesus, and amen.
You have confessed your sins. You have acknowledged your faults before the Lord. God has heard your cry, and has declared that everlasting joy shall be upon your heads. And so I declare to you now that your sins are forgiven through Christ.
Congregation: Thanks be to God!