Tag: prayer of confession

Nehemiah 1:1-11

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year CLeave a comment
            Prayer is not a passive activity.  If done well, prayer takes time, a great deal of effort, and a sense of priority.  It is quite possible that biblical praying can be the most challenging, exhausting, laborious, and rewarding thing we do.  Through prayer we can become filled with the Holy Spirit, gain wisdom to make godly decisions, and access spiritual power that can melt the hardest of hearts and change the minds of the most stubborn of people.  In prayer we have the privilege of expressing our concerns and needs, as well as having God’s agenda revealed to us for what to do.  Our personal and corporate holiness is in direct proportion to the great task of prayer.
 
            When faced with the reality that Jerusalem was in trouble, Nehemiah prayed.  In prayer he owned the problems that Jerusalem faced.  He owned it through a prayer that emphasized and reminded God of his covenant with his people; he confessed the sins by which Israel violated that covenant; and held onto the promise that God would lift the curse on the city if the people would repent.
 
            Nehemiah had a compassionate heart that did not ignore what was going on in his native land, but wept, mourned, fasted and prayed.  He had a deep concern for and was profoundly disturbed by the news that Jerusalem was in trouble.  Rather than being preoccupied with himself, or turning his back on what was going on and focusing on his own new life in Babylon, he sought to do something about the security and spiritual health of his people.
 
            In his prayer to God, Nehemiah was genuine, persistent, confident, humble, and submissive to God.  He did not distance himself from the sins of the people, but clearly identified with them through a prayer of confession.  That confession was intense, honest, real, and urgent.  Sin always needs to be identified, acknowledged, and pardoned.  If it isn’t, there is no hope for things to be different.
 
            There is a season for everything.  Deer season may come and go, but it is always open season for prayer.  And Nehemiah’s prayer is a solid biblical model for us to emulate.  We all have our challenges to face.   Like Nehemiah, let’s own those challenges through prayer that is biblically focused, compassionately offered, and spiritually curious to know and do God’s agenda for our lives and for God’s people.
 

 

            Most merciful God, I confess that we have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone.  We have not loved you with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.  I am truly sorry and I humbly repent.  For the sake of your Son Jesus Christ, have mercy on us and forgive us; that we may delight in your will, and walk in your ways, to the glory of your Name. Amen.

Nehemiah 9:26-31

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment
            Much of the Old Testament is a rhythm of God’s judgment and grace.  The storyline often goes something like this:  God makes promises.  God commands.  People get stubborn.  People disobey.  People refuse to listen.  God responds with judgment.  God gives grace and fulfills his promises.  People enjoy.  People get stubborn.  The cycle begins again….  The promise of God always involves judgment and grace.  Proclaiming only a message of judgment without grace brings despair, death, and hell; there is no hope.  Only speaking of grace apart from judgment is oxymoronic – it doesn’t exist because there is no need for grace if there is no judgment; grace is an undeserved mercy given freely by God in the face of our sinful selves.
 
            Nehemiah chapter nine is a beautiful prayer of confession.  Having heard the Word of God proclaimed, the people did not remain obstinate; they realized exile occurred because of their own stubborn refusal to listen to God, and they repented.  The Jews acknowledged their checkered past of ignoring the prophets God sent, and they bellied-up and took ownership of their own sin.  And God was faithful.  Even though the city of Jerusalem had been overtaken and the people sent into exile, God brought them back and the broken wall was rebuilt.
 
            It is never too late to turn from a past filled with poor decisions, broken relationships, and spiritual disobedience.  The time of confession is available, and the time is now.  God’s grace always trumps our dubious past.  The appropriate response to today’s lectionary is to spend some time in confession to God.  This chapter, along with Nehemiah chapter one, are good places to begin with understanding just what to say to God.  Confession ought always to conclude with accepting the grace available to us in Christ.  Today is a new day.  Let it be a new life with the love of Jesus implanted in your heart.
 

 

            Holy and loving God, your grace is measureless and free.  Today I turn from my stubborn refusal to walk in your ways, and receive the wonderful gift of new life through Jesus Christ, who loved me and gave himself for me.  Amen.

Psalm 51:1-12

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment
            Sin is pervasive.  It is constantly present.  Sin lurks in the shadows of the heart, drips from the tongue of the wicked, and lingers in the actions of the selfish and proud.  Sin is not something to trifle with, dabble in, or even manage.  No, sin at its core is a rebellion against God, a stiff-arm to the Lord that claims we know better than he about how to run our lives.  Sin will eventually break us.  It may initially look good and meet a quick emotional need, but in the end it is like a poisonous snake bite that will kill unless treated.
 
            When we come to the realization that we are in dire straits, then it is high time we blurt out a prayer of confession along with David.  The book of Psalms is the Christian’s prayer book, and there is no better prayer to pray when we come to the end of ourselves than David’s in Psalm 51.  “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions.  Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin!”
 
            A genuine prayer of confession asks for mercy based upon God’s character and ability to heal, rather than trusting in the attempted quality of our petition.  In other words, neither the eloquence nor the sheer word structure itself is the proper basis for confession; utterances of a broken and contrite heart, submitted to God, trusting solely in his grace to transform are the only kind of words appropriate for approaching God with our sin.  Such prayers are not to be few and far between; they are to be a regular regimen, engaged on a daily basis.  Just as we take pills each day for all that ails us, so we need to take in the mercy of God through prayers of confession that link us to the only true healing power that will bring health and life.
            Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.  Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me.  Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.  Amen.

Repentance as Worship

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Exploring Church Ministry BlogLeave a comment
 
 
Repentance is one of those big biblical words sometimes lost in the worship of God.  Yet, without repentance we would not be Christians and we would not be able to live fruitful lives following Jesus.  To repent of something simply means to change our minds and stop doing one thing, and start doing another.  In Holy Scripture, repentance means to stop sinning and start worshiping God.  Since true worship is a conversation with God in which we hear his revelation to us and we respond to him, repentance is a vital part of the Christian worship experience.  The nitty-gritty of repentance is to change our minds about trusting in things and people other than God, and start placing our complete faith in Christ alone.  The prophet Isaiah saw a vision of God in the temple, a self-revealing of the One true God that caused him to be completely unraveled with repentance (Isaiah 6:1-7).
 
Isaiah was reduced to nothing after seeing a vision of a holy God.  Humans cannot see God in his glory without seeing their sinful selves.  Isaiah’s response to God was not praise, but confession.  Show me a proud, self-centered, and arrogant person and I will show you a person who has not seen God (and will not see God unless recognition of personal sin is realized).
 
            Isaiah could not cleanse himself from his sin; he needed God to purge and purify him from his uncleanness.  In the same way, we need God to cleanse us.  The New Testament says that “The blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin… If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:7, 9).
 
            In the Bible, when people saw God they were completely undone and saw their own sin and depravity for what it is.  When the Apostle Peter saw the Lord Jesus in his immensity and power through a miraculous catch of fish “he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, ‘Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man’” (Luke 5:8).  When the Apostle John had a vision of Jesus Christ in all his glory, and heard his voice, he fell at the Lord’s feet as though dead (Revelation 1:12-17).  When the prophet Ezekiel had a vision of God and saw the appearance of God’s glory, he fell facedown (Ezekiel 1:25-28).  Even Daniel, perhaps the most righteous prophet of all time, saw a vision of God in all his glory and fell prostrate with his face to the ground, totally overwhelmed with God’s holiness and human sinfulness (Daniel 8:15-18).
 
            There is so much sinfulness in the world and so much indifference in Christ’s Church today because people are not seeing God in his glory and his holiness.  If they did, they would be completely beside themselves and see sin’s foulness and degradation and repent from all the ways in which they have been apathetic and complacent in living their lives.  The world and the church need a fresh view of a holy God that only comes from meeting with God.
 
            We need to put ourselves in a position to see and hear God so that we can turn from all the obstacles that prevents us from experiencing Father, Son, and Spirit.  What hinders us from seeing God’s glory and hearing God’s voice is legion:  inattention to God’s Word and God’s creation that would cause a mindfulness to the Holy Spirit; intense, constant, and prolonged preoccupations and daydreams that prevents availability to the words and ways of Jesus; lack of sleep and good health habits that dulls the spiritual senses and prevents awareness of God; lack of spiritual practices and disciplines that would put us in a position to experience a vision of God.
 
            To put it bluntly:  we must repent of all the ways we do not pay attention to God.  God is calling but we do not hear him.  God is revealing himself but we do not see him. 
 
Ø  What, then, are we doing in our personal lives to put ourselves in a position to see and hear God?
Ø  In what ways are we corporately fostering a sense of the holy God? 
Ø  How does repentance fit into to our personal and corporate worship? 
Ø  Have we identified the things that grieve the heart of God so that we can repent of those things? 
Ø  What one action step will you take in response to this blog post?
 

 

            We serve a blessed holy triune God of Father, Son, and Spirit.  God has gone far out of his way to reach us so that we can participate in the dance of the Trinity.  May we all see a vision of God is his glory this Sunday and allow that scene to slay us so that we will have renewed fellowship with God in Christ through the power of the Spirit.  Amen.