Continued talking about prayer this past Sunday, with our focus on confession and repentance in our prayers. As we have done each week of this series, I wanted to post a blog that I hope will become interactive with ideas on how people can incorporate prayers from this week’s them in their lives. This list includes thoughts from the sermon, and a few other ideas that we hope will help you grow in your vertical conversation with God. We also hope you will join the conversation by sharing some ideas of your own.
- Spend a lot of time in this Psalm, and the other Psalms of confession. See the list below for those Psalms
- Check your heart, don’t just do the act. It is important that we don’t turn confession into a religious activity.
- Do Communion well. Every time we take Communion and remember the body and blood of Jesus it should move us toward deep honesty with God.
- Learn to confess your sin in your community of faith.
- Make a list of areas of sin in your life, then use the list to confess sin in prayer and repent. Then take a big marker and write the word “FORGIVEN” in huge letters across the sheet. Hold on to that sheet for a couple days as a reminder of God’s grace and forgiveness.
- If you have kids, think about how you want them to respond to you in the times where they know that they have done something wrong. If you are like me, you want to them to run to you, jump in your arms, and share with you honestly. Then, think about what it would look like for you to respond to God in the same way.
- I know this one might sound crazy, but the Old Testament sign of repentance was sackcloth and ashes. In other words, they would put on garments that were very uncomfortable and put ashes on their face as reminders that they needed their repentance and confession to go deep. Sackcloth was something like a burlap bag, but you might choose to wear something else as a reminder during the day, and then remove that item as you give thanks for God’s wonderful forgiveness.
- Confess your sins while looking in the mirror. Then give thanks that as a believer, when God looks at you he chooses to see the perfection of His Son Jesus.
Some of the confessional Psalms
Psalm 6
Psalm 32
Psalm 38
Psalm 51
Psalm 102
Psalm 130
Psalm 143