Streams of Mercy

Prayers of Confession and Celebration

Barbara R. Duguid, Iain M. Duguid

• Publisher: P Publishing
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781629953427
• eBook ISBN: 9781629953434
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Would you like to bring greater depth to your prayers? These Trinitarian prayers are designed for private or church use—providing gospel comfort on topics including purity, waiting, and hope.

NO OTHER GODS (COMMANDMENT 1)

CALL TO CONFESSION: EXODUS 20:1–3; DEUTERONOMY 6:4–9

And God spoke all these words, saying,
I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land
of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
You shall have no other gods before me.”

“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”

PRAYER OF CONFESSION

Eternal Father,

Your kindness and love are beyond all thought, far exceeding our wildest dreams. But, Lord, we are not like you. Our lips may confess our devotion to you, but our hearts are slow to follow our words, and we are reluctant to obey you with our lives. We confess to you our adulterous and idolatrous hearts. We cherish many things far more than we love you, and we spend hours each day worshiping at the feet of other gods. Instead of treasuring you and your Word, we lavish the best of our time on our false gods, hoping that they will bless us and reward us for our efforts. Meanwhile, we are content to give you the leftovers of our attention. O God, have mercy on us and forgive us for our persistent blindness and false worship.

Holy Spirit, give us grace to hate and grieve the many moments we have spent lost in worship before our other lovers. We have turned your good gifts into false gods and have given ourselves to them. Even though they use and abuse us, still we run after them and sell our souls to them. Please work in us continual repentance, turning our wandering hearts back to our perfect Savior. Teach us to love your Word, which reminds us that he has loved us and given himself for us; he traded all of the glory of heaven in order to live with us and be obedient for us.

Make Christ beautiful to us. Satisfy our minds with true knowledge of him, and set our hearts on fire with profound love for him. Let us love him with every part of ourselves: with emotions that delight in him and long for him; with minds that are full of thoughts of him and bodies that are eager to serve him. Draw us back to the cross, where his love was poured out for the salvation of our souls. Remind us that even death will never part us from you, but can only be the bright and joyful completion of your eternal story of love and redemption. In Jesus’ beautiful name we pray, amen.

ASSURANCE OF PARDON: 1 JOHN 3:1; 4:9–10

See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.

In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

HYMNS

“Here Is Love Vast as the Ocean”

“My Jesus, I Love Thee”

NO IDOLS (COMMANDMENT 2)

CALL TO CONFESSION: EXODUS 20:4–6; ROMANS 1:22–25

“You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.”

Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

PRAYER OF CONFESSION

Loving heavenly Father,

You have created us to worship you alone. Fashioned by your hand and kept alive each moment by your will and your decree, we depend on you for each breath that we take. You have dealt kindly and patiently with us, and we should worship you alone, with joy and gratitude, every moment of every day. Your Word should delight us and your law should motivate us to obedience, all day every day. Yet, Lord, we are great sinners who wander and run from you often. We regularly exchange your truth for lies, because we don’t want to worship and obey you. Rather, we want to be our own gods. Many times each day we turn from you toward the idols that enchant us, bowing before them and hoping that they will make peace for us. We desire sinful things and sell our souls to get them. We treasure your gifts instead of treasuring you, feeling that we can’t live without the good things you have given us. Father, forgive us; have mercy on us, for we are weak and guilty of worshiping many false gods.

Thank you for Jesus, who paid the price for all our sin and who worshiped you alone throughout his earthly life. When tempted to bow before Satan and to pursue the glittering jewels of fame, power, and wealth, he stood firm and prized you and obedience to you above all things. Knowing that we would desperately need his righteousness to cover our shame, he persevered, and now you have given us all his goodness. Father, thank you that you have given us a mighty Redeemer, and that you have left your Holy Spirit within us until your work on earth is done.

Holy Spirit, show us our idolatry and grant us sweet conviction and joyful repentance. Make Christ more beautiful to us than all other things, and help us to desire him above the trinkets and positions of power that we crave. Grant us a growing hope and faith in Christ alone, until the day when we bow before our victorious King, rescued by his strong arm and dressed in his righteousness alone. In his mighty name we pray, amen.

ASSURANCE OF PARDON: EZEKIEL 37:23, 26

“They shall not defile themselves anymore with their idols and their detestable things, or with any of their transgressions. But I will save them from all the backslidings in which they have sinned, and will cleanse them; and they shall be my people, and I will be their God.

. . . I will make a covenant of peace with them. It shall be an everlasting covenant with them. And I will set them in their land and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in their midst forevermore.”

HYMNS

“Jesus, Be My All (How Sad Our State)”

“There Is a Redeemer”

GOD’S NAME (COMMANDMENT 3)

CALL TO CONFESSION: EXODUS 20:7; GENESIS 11:4; ISAIAH 42:8

“You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.”

Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.”

“I am the LORD; that is my name;
my glory I give to no other,
nor my praise to carved idols.”

PRAYER OF CONFESSION

Mighty and majestic God,

We come to you as deeply self-center...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• The Heart
• No Other Gods (Commandment 1)
• No Idols (Commandment 2)
• God’s Name (Commandment 3)
• Sabbath (Commandment 4)
• Honoring Parents (Commandment 5)
• Anger (Commandment 6)
• Lust (Commandment 7)
• Stealing (Commandment 8)
• False Witness (Commandment 9)
• Coveting (Commandment 10)
• God’s Glory
• Endless Love
• Foolishness
• God’s Law
• Clean Hands
• Patience
• A Shelter in the Storm
• God, Our Warrior
• Waiting (1)
• God’s Majesty
• Hiding from God
• Hope Deferred
• Straying Sheep
• Spiritual Disciplines
• Righteousness
• Unfaithfulness
• The Faithful Shepherd
• Purity
• Beauty (1)
• Shepherds and Sheep
• Shame
• Waiting (2)
• Adoption
• Hard Hearts
• Anger
• Justice (1)
• Honesty
• Prayer
• Seeking God’s Kingdom
• The Rock
• Relentless Love
• Fear (1)
• Worship
• The Righteous Judge
• The Good News
• Fear (2)
• The Christ
• Rebellious Prodigals
• Resurrection
• Love One Another (1)
• Peace
• The Gospel
• The Divine Judge
• God’s Kindness
• Justice (2)
• Sacrificial Service
• Trust
• Finding Fault with God
• Living in Community
• Hope
• God’s Good Gifts
• Boasting
• Trusting Ourselves
• Reconciliation
• Humility
• Assurance
• Glory
• The Word of God (1)
• Unbelief
• The Word of God (2)
• Faith
• God’s Unchanging Faithfulness
• Justice (3)
• Beauty (2)
• God’s Goodness
• Fiery Trials
• Suffering
• Waiting (3)
• Confessing Our Sin
• Walking in Darkness
• Behold Your God!
• God’s Love
• Love One Another (2)
• Index of Themes
• Index of Calls to Confession
• Index of Assurances of Pardon
• Index of Sermon Texts for Which the Prayers Were Written
• Index of Musical Resources