May 18

We worship You as our Adonai.  You are Lord.  You are The Boss. We acknowledge Your authority to do as You please because You are our Owner, and the Owner of all things. You made us at Creation.  You bought us at Calvary.  You have the right to rule our lives.

You are merciful.  Yes! You are!
You are loving. Yes! You are!
You are gracious.  Yes! You are!
You are kind.  Yes! You are!
You are faithful. Yes! You are!

How we love You for the beauty of Your character.  But we would be dishonest if we did not also acknowledge that You cannot be less than Yourself.  And You are also just.  You are holy. You are righteous.  And a holy, righteous, just Boss demands judgment for our sin. Which is the message of the Cross.  If there was no accountability for sin, there would be no need for the Cross.  The Cross reveals Your hatred for sin. It is Your extreme penalty for sin. You died so that sinners could live.

At the Cross we see The Boss giving His life for little dust people, and we stand amazed in the presence of the crucified Savior, the Lord of Glory. The Cross not only reveals the heinousness of our sin, but the infinite love of Adonai who stepped in and took His own judgment for us.

I worship You because____________

For three days we have worshipped You as Elohim, The Strong One; as El Elyon, The Most Exalted High God; and as I AM, The Eternal God. We have glimpsed Your glory.  Today, we acknowledge that You are Adonai.  You are Lord. The Boss.  And we are not.  In light of who You are, we see ourselves more clearly.  We are sinners.  Forgiven, yes. Redeemed, yes.  But desperately in need of a spiritual bath.  We need to be freshly cleansed that we might be filled to overflow with Your Spirit.  Therefore…

We confess that our focus in life and even our focus in prayer has not been on You, and You alone as the Solution to our problems and the Answer to our needs. We confess that we have acted as though we are somebody and You are nobody.

We repent.

We confess that often we have been focused on “them” instead of on ourselves. We turn to You now and ask that You shine the light of Your truth into our hearts and what we feel, into our minds and what we think, so that we see ourselves as You see us, and truly, deeply repent of our sin.

Strip us, most Holy Lord, of any pride or self-righteousness or judgmentalness before we pray for others. Teach us to first take the plank out of our own eye before trying to remove the splinter in someone else’s eye.³ We long for You to send revival to the hearts of Your people. Let it begin right here. Right now. With us.

We committed our sins one by one, and so we confess them one by one.

Ingratitude. We have not been truly thankful to You for the blessings You have given us before and after salvation. Instead, we have given ourselves credit for many of the blessings that come from Your hand.

I repent.

Lost love for God. We have lost our passionate, emotional, affectionate first love for You, and instead give our first love to our bank account, sports team, pleasures, career, another person or even to ourselves.

I repent.

Neglect of the Bible. We spend more time reading blogs or online news or the latest bestselling novel or our business periodical or even an owner’s manual for our newest tech toy, than we do reading Your Word.

I repent.

Unbelief. In reality, we think Your promises are for others, or for another day. We don’t think they actually “work” for us. And thus we call You a liar.

I repent.

Prayerlessness. We ask others to pray for us, but we don’t pray for ourselves. We daydream, fantasize, indulge in wishful thinking, and call it “prayer.” Then we blame You when You don’t answer.

I repent.

Lack of Concern for the Souls of Others. We stand by and watch friends, neighbors, co-workers, and even family members on their way to hell, yet don’t care enough to warn them or pray for them or even admit that’s where they will end up if they don’t put their faith in Jesus. We have become so politically correct that we don’t apply the Gospel to those we know and love for fear of offending them.

I repent.

Neglect of Family. We put our needs and ourselves before our families, deceiving ourselves and cheating them by living as though financial, material gain is more important than their spiritual condition and development. We delegate to the church or to a school our own responsibility to raise up godly children so that faith in the living God has not been passed to the next generation.

I repent.

Love of the World and Material Things: We complain or resent the thought that we owe you a minimum of 10% of our income. So we don’t give it to You.

I repent.

Pride. We have a “me-first” mentality.

I repent.

Envy. We struggle when others receive more recognition and praise than we do.

I repent.

A Critical Spirit. We find fault with those who don’t measure up to our standards.

I repent.

Slander. We tell the truth in order to make others think less of someone.

I repent.

Lack of Seriousness towards You. We give You the leftovers of our time, thoughts, emotions, money.

I repent.

Lying. We don’t tell the truth. Or we say things that are not the whole truth in order to impress others. We exaggerate. We stretch the truth and call it a “white lie” as though there are good lies and bad lies.

I repent.

Cheating. We don’t treat others the way we want to be treated.

I repent.

Hypocrisy. We pretend to be something that we are not.

I repent.

Robbing God. We waste time on things that have no eternal value. We exercise our God-given gifts and talents for a fee. We are willing to do for a price what we will not do freely for God.

I repent.

Temper. We lose patience and speak crossly.

I repent.

Bad Temper. We lose control of our emotions, thoughts, and words so that we abuse someone verbally.

I repent.

Hindering Others. We take someone else’s time needlessly. We destroy someone’s confidence because we hold them to an unreasonably high standard.

I repent.

Holy Lord, with tears on our face and sobs in our throat and shame in our hearts, we truly, sincerely, courageously “rend our hearts.”⁴ We repent of our sin. We not only name it for what it is in Your sight but we turn away from it.

We claim Your promise of forgiveness of sin through Your blood. ⁵

We claim Your promise that if we confess our sins, You will be faithful and just to forgive us and purify us.⁶

I confess___________________
I repent_____________________

Thank You for Your forgiveness.
Thank You for the Blood that washes us clean.
Thank You that our tears are on Your face.
Thank You that as our High Priest You understand firsthand the feelings of the shame and guilt of our sin.⁷
Thank You that although You were sinless, You became sin for us that we might be right with You.⁸
Thank You that when we are under Your blood and our lives are hidden in You, we become a new creation. The old has gone, and the new has come.⁹
Thank You for the blessed assurance that when we have confessed our sin—when we have been cleansed of our sin—we will receive a rich welcome into Your Presence and into your heavenly Home because our Savior is The Boss.¹⁰ And His name is Jesus.