O God,
May Your Spirit speak in us that we may speak to You.
We have no merit, let the merit of Jesus stand for us.
We are undeserving, but we look to Your tender mercy.
We are full of infirmities, wants, sin; You are full of grace.
We confess our sin, our frequent sin, our willful sin;
All our powers of body and soul are defiled;
A fountain of pollution is deep within our nature.
There are chambers of foul images within our being;
We have gone from one odious room to another,
walked in a no-man's-land of dangerous imaginations,
pried into the secrets of our fallen nature.
We are utterly ashamed that we are what we are in ourselves;
We have no green shoot in us nor fruit, but thorns and thistles;
We are fading leaves that the wind drives away;
We live bare and barren as a winter tree,
unprofitable, fit to be cut down and burnt.
Lord, do You have mercy on us?
You have struck a heavy blow at our pride,
at the false god of self,
and we lie in pieces before you.
But You have given us another Master and Lord,
Your Son, Jesus,
and now our hearts are turned towards holiness,
our lives speed as an arrow from a bow
towards complete obedience to You.
Help us in all our doings to put down sin and to humble pride.
Save us from the love of the world and the pride of life,
from everything that is natural to fallen man,
and let Christ's nature be seen in us day by day.
Grant us grace to bear your will without discontent,
and delight to be not only chiseled, squared, or fashioned,
but separated from the old rock where we have been embedded so long,
and lifted from the quarry to the upper air,
where we may be built in Christ for ever.
Amen.