Confession Thursday 6.16.22

4 “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. 5 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, 6 but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.” - Exodus 20:4-6

Father, forgive us.

While we may not have statues and icons around our homes or churches,

and while we may not literally bow down and serve them,

nevertheless, our hearts are idol factories.

We have our own golden calves of convenience, remaking God in our own image.

Have mercy on us for paying homage to feigned deities of our own imaginations,

for worshipping our distortions of you, the living and true God;

distortions which pit your attributes against one another, highlight one aspect of your nature,

and allow us to exalt ourselves as we make you smaller and more manageable.

Forgive us as well for all of our ethical idolatry which distorts our understanding of you.

Forgive our greed and pride, our lovelessness and apathy, our anger and bitterness, our prejudice and condescension;

all of which indicate divided, impure hearts which give allegiance to things which are not God.

Forgive us of our false and contaminated worship.

Forgive us for ignoring the counsel of your Word about what constitutes true worship.

Forgive us for pitting spirit and truth against one another, as if we can embrace you while ignoring one of them.

Cleanse our worship of both the idolatry of innovation and the idolatry of tradition.

By your grace reform our hearts and our worship.

Redeem us by your steadfast love in Christ, that we might love you and keep your commandments.

Confession Thursday is a weekly feature of Semper Ref. In keeping with the name of our website, we believe there is no true reformation in individual lives or the life and ministry of the Church apart from true repentance as God calls us to conformity with his word. The promise of the Gospel is not that we can repent deeply enough for God to love us, but that since God loves us he invites us into deep repentance. It is not the strength of our prayer that gives us hope, but the fact that Christ is the propitiation of our sin. Because of this, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Unless otherwise noted, all the prayers of confession found here are written by the SemperRef editorial team. Confession Thursday prayers may be reproduced with permission if you cite SemperRef.org as the source.