Confession and joy

Dear Lord,

In the Name of Jesus Christ, my Saviour, I come to You in confession.  I stand in the righteousness of Christ and nothing of my own.

I admit and acknowledge that I am sinful, and that I have sinned before You.  My sins are an abomination in your sight, and it screams against your holiness.  I ask for forgiveness.  I am ashamed of the fact that although You have saved me, I am still only a child in faith.  I stumble; fall and every time come to You for forgiveness.  It seems as if my life does not show signs of growth and victory.  What I read about the Christian life in your Word sometimes seems  so unattainable.  If I have to believe the tempter, I sometimes even wonder if I am indeed saved.

And still, there is only one place I can go to:  You.

Your holiness and grandeur to me are both an attraction and something I would sometimes just run away from.  Your holiness is beautiful, more beautiful than the best I might have seen and known in what You have created.  I want to come back to it and enjoy it more and more.  But being there, I realize how hopeless and sinful I am; it scares me and I want to stay away from You.  I sometimes just want to hide under the bush like Elijah, wishing to die.

The fact that I offend your holiness, knowing that I deserve your righteous judgment, creates in me a sort of despondency.  There is so little of the victory seen in my life.

My prayer time is hopeless and insufficient.

And yet, the joy of knowing You surpasses all understanding.  The satisfaction of reading your Word and to pray is just tremendous.  When I am riding the crest of joy in You, I just can’t understand why I turn away from it to drink from cracked cisterns filled with polluted water.

With the testimony from the Word I must say, with You I have the words of life and there is no other place to go.

Please forgive me!  Forgive me my sins and save me from sinfulness.  I declare once again that I know that your grace and love are the only ground I stand upon.  I am ashamed of my sin.  And what scares me most is the fact that what I do, can bring disrepute to your Name.  Please, wash away my sins in the blood of that fountain gushing from Calvary.  Hold me close in your arms, close to the heart of my Saviour, so that I will always see Him on the cross, dying for me and atoning for my transgressions.

Let the grace of love and the joy of forgiveness never become something I get used to.  Let it always be new like the sun rising every morning.  I plead that You will never let me go.

Thank you, Father, for not giving up on me.  Thank You once again for the good books I was privileged to read.  For the things your servants wrote about, good to ponder, beneficial to chew, and fruitful to follow.  But most of all, I thank you for your Spirit who time and time again open the Word to the depths of who You are.

I thank You for your Son, my Saviour.  I declare my love to You, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  Help me that my love will be more than words.  Help me to show to You, in the fist place, that I love You.  Help me that the time I spend with You will be witnessed in my actions, so that my testimony will be something people would want to follow.

I thank You for not allowing the things that I contemplate about and foster in my private life are known to other people.  They would then not even think of being a Christian themselves.  I mourn over these things and ask that You will give me victory, not because of my good intentions, but because of what I already possess by faith in Christ.

I praise your Name, Lord, for not leaving me by the roadside when I stumble.  In spite of knowing how to follow You, I sometimes just go my own way in sinful stubbornness.  Forgive me, Father!  Your faithfulness is more that what I can fathom.  I feel like the lonely sheep who have wondered away. I then, looking up, I see your hand once again.  I thank You for the promise that You will not allow anyone snatch me from your hand.

I thank You for your Bible and the richness of it.  Help me to constantly and continuously find in it the wonder of grace and salvation.

I bring this prayer to You in the Name of Christ, my Redeemer and Saviour.  It is with stumbling words that I declare my love for You.  Help me to fall in love with You every day, so that the newness of salvation in Christ will drive m y day and program in your service.

AMEN.