Confession and Petition

Holy Lord,

We have sinned times without number,
and been guilty of pride and unbelief,
of failure to find Your mind in Your Word,
of neglect to seek You in our daily lives.
Our transgressions and short-comings
present us with a list of accusations,
but we bless You that they will not stand against us,
for all have been laid on Christ;
Go on to subdue our corruptions,
and grant us grace to live above them.
Let not the passions of the flesh nor lustings of the mind bring our spirits into subjection,
but You must rule over us in liberty and power.

We thank You that many of our prayers have been refused—
We have asked amiss and do not have,
We have prayed from lusts and been rejected,
We have longed for Egypt and been given a wilderness.
Go on with Your patient work,
answering 'no' to our wrongful prayers,
and teaching us to accept it.
Purge us from every false desire,
every base aspiration,
everything contrary to Your rule.
We thank You for Your wisdom and Your love,
for all the acts of discipline to which we are subject,
for sometimes putting us into the furnace to refine our gold and remove our dross.

No trial is so hard to bear as a sense of sin.
If You should give us choice to live in pleasure and keep our sins,
or to have them burnt away with trial,
give us sanctified affliction.
Deliver us from every evil habit,
every accrual of former sins,
everything that dims the brightness of Your grace in us,
everything that prevents us taking delight in You.
Then we shall bless You, O God,
for helping us to be upright.

Amen.

 

Adapted from The Valley of Vision. Published by Banner of Truth.