2.2 KiB
Father,
We come to You as reconciled enemies. Our old hearts were terminally driven toward a hopeless war against You. We were unfailingly loyal to Adam's Rebellion. We were without hope, forever bound in the grip of sin and guilt. In every thought and deed, even when benevolent to man, we sought to dethrone You. But for Your grace, we had no capacity to turn to You.
Unlike You, we, even now, fail to love our enemies as Your Son told us to. We return evil for evil, and sometimes even evil for good. We hold onto our grievances against others. We pine for justice, even against those for whom justice is already satisfied through the cross of Christ.
We have wielded the tongue carelessly and brought reproach upon Your name.
As the hands and feet of Your Son, who loves us, He would set us to the task of caring for one another. We neglect this task.
We have played the sluggard and have not utilized our time well. We have prioritized trivial things over our responsibilities. We have given more thought to the things that please us than to the things that please You.
When we do the things that You command, we often are consumed by pride. We focus wrongly on the excellence of our work when and fail to beseech You, that You would bless it with fruit.
We take lightly the blood of Your Son. We give far to little thought the enormity of the price for which we were bought, when we turn back to the ways of the nature of our first birth.
When we do well, we think ourselves sufficient before You. Though we would never put it to words, we adopt attitudes of thinking we are worthy of our spot at the Table, rather than recognizing that this Table is an indictment against us that proclaims our unworthiness.
Now we ask that You would receive us again. We ask that You would count us among those for whom Christ is high priest. We who were washed now reaffirm our reliance on the blood of our King. Help us as we remember the price of our redemption, as we partake and thereby proclaim that it is for us that the Lamb died. Here we see our guilt and our pardon. We come to You knowing that our plea for mercy is worthless, but the plea of our great High Priest and His Sacrifice on our behalf is worthy.
It is in Your righteous Son Christ Jesus that that we come to You. Amen.