Proclaim. Disciple. Serve.

Prayer of Confession: The First Commandment

Call to Confession: Ephesians 4:1-3

1 I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, 2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, 3 eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

Prayer of Confession

Father God:

You are the Lord our God. You created mankind from the dust of the earth. You created us in your image and according to your likeness. In you we live and move and have our being. Yet our rebellion against you, our Creator, is so complete that in the giving of your commandments, you had to make clear in the very first commandment what ought to be obvious to us: You shall have no other gods before me.

Father, we confess that, as John Calvin put it: Our hearts are factories for idolatry. Father, we confess that it’s oh so easy to look at the type of idolatry we read about in Scripture and think to ourselves, “Thank God that I’m not an idolater like those people.” Father, if we’re honest, perhaps our idolatry is worse than what we read in Scripture… in that there are so many things in our world that we think about and desire and pursue more than we think about and desire and pursue you, our eternal, transcendent God.

Father, we confess that though our Savior tells us that we cannot serve God and riches, we often put material well-being ahead of worshipping and serving you. We confess that we frequently value reputation, or we value physical pleasure, or we value knowledge, or we value civil liberty, or we value a comfortable life, or we even value something as wonderful as our family, more than we value you.

Father, we acknowledge what your Word says: that all of the implications of the first commandment are summed up in the first great commandment: We are to love you, our God, with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. We are to remember you, meditate upon you, desire you, trust you, delight in you, call upon you, submit to you. You instruct us to do justice, love kindness, and to walk humbly with our God. Heavenly Father, we confess that most of our days are spent in disobedience to the very first  commandment you have given us, a commandment that is for our good.

We know that if we say “amen” to this prayer and yet we still intend to go on sinning, this prayer will have no effect on our lives.

So we ask Father that you hear us as we confess our sins to you.

Heavenly Father, thank you that according to your mercy you saved us from all of our sins of idolatry and from all of our other sins. You saved us not by any works of righteousness… but according to your mercy. We praise you that by the washing of regeneration and by the renewing of the Holy Spirit, you view us as having the righteousness of your Son, Jesus Christ.

Lord Jesus, our only Savior and the only mediator between us and the Father, thank you for bearing our sins in your body on the cross… so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. We plead with you for the ongoing grace we need to have that righteousness be manifested in our lives – that we would have no gods before you.

We pray this prayer of confession in the precious name of the Son of God, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Assurance of Pardon: Psalm 32:1-2

1 Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven,
whose sin is covered.
2 Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity,
and in whose spirit there is no deceit.

If your faith is in Jesus Christ alone, and if you have repented of your sin, then in Christ Jesus, be assured by the promises of God that all your sins – past, present, and future – have been pardoned.