By Not Known
A healthy prayer life has prayers of adoration (or admiration), confession (Saying
‘sorry‘); thanksgiving (saying ‘thank you‘) and supplication (asking for help). They can be remembered by the word ‘ACTS‘.
What is the mix of these different types in your prayer life?
Let's think about confession. Our first prayer in Sunday services is, in part, a prayer of confession. The worship leader helps us to come before God with recognition of our sins and then helps us to confess them and seek God's pardon through the Lord Jesus Christ.
Do you regularly include prayers of confession in your private prayers?
Today’s Bible passage tells of a man making confession (Lk 18:9-14). There are no excuses or self-justification. He labels himself a sinner and appeals to God for mercy. He seeks mercy from God as the only one who can forgive him and against whom he has sinned. The words 'have mercy‘ include the sense of God making payment for
him. They are a recognition that his sins create a debt before God, that he cannot
pay it himself and that his only hope is for God to make the payment
Do your prayers include a frank admission that you are a sinner and that your only
hope is in God’s mercy
Confession concerns more than gross outward sins. We can sin against God in heart,
soul and mind, as well as with the body. Inward sins such as pride, envy, greed and
lust are just as sinful as their outward expression. Or again, our sins include both
things that we should have done but did not do (omission), as well as things that we
did but should not have done (commssion)
What sins arise from your inward and outward life?
What sins of commission and omission need your confession?
Our worship leaders sometimes give a period of silence to make our own private confession. This is an awe-filled time as we see our lives before God. It is then so refreshing to read words such as1Jn 1: 8- 2:2. When we are honest in our
confession, God is quick to clear our debt before him and to restore us to fellowship
with him. So let us make a good confession in order that we too may go home
justified (Lk 18:14).