prayers of repentance

What a wonderful prayer gathering we enjoyed last Sunday evening; communing together with God. We remembered that God has done great things and put our hope and trust in Him to continue to do more great things in the future. In preparation for Him to use us in a mighty way, I believe we need to repent of all that holds us back from doing his will (sins of omission), and of the sins we commit.
 
Repentance is different to Lament which we covered last Sunday morning. It is also different to remorse, feeling sorry for ourselves, and expressing sorrows that others have been hurt. This kind of sorrow can lead to repentance and salvation, and leaves no regret (see 2 Corinthians 7:10), but sorrow in itself is not repentance.
 
Repentance begins with being aware of and sorry for our sins. Jesus Christ tells us to confess both the sins we commit and our sins of omission (See Luke 11:4). When we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleans us from unrighteousness. We then must choose to turn from those sins and walk in the newness of life through faith in Christ. There’s no point returning to our sins and slavery. Rather we need to walk in righteousness and freedom as the people of God. May we all live in this freedom and be shining lights for Jesus. I will continue to pray this prayer this week and lead our church in corporate repentance on Sunday.
 
In the lead up to that, you may like to take these steps for personal repentance, taken from Peter Adam’s Reimagining Repentance:

•  Remember that God loves you just as you are, but also loves you too much to leave you just as you are. Praise him for alerting you to your sins, for this act of his love, because you are already one of his saints, and he wants to sanctify you and make you more like the Lord Jesus, and transform you daily from one degree of glory to another. God welcomes you with joy, like the father welcomed his son in Luke 15. He loves you before you repent, and he loves it when you repent. And though we may grow tired of confessing our sins, especially when we confess the same sin again and again, God is never tired of forgiving us. And ‘please forgive me’ is a prayer that God always answers with a ‘yes’ immediately, absolutely, and cheerfully: ‘that’s why my Son went to the cross”.
•  Recognise the sin as a sin against God [and against others]. Feel and express sorrow for these sins Include sins you have done, and good that you have not done [commission and omission]. 
• Renounce the sin, distance yourself from it, reject it, detest it, separate yourself from it. It is not who you want to be.
•  Repent of the sin, and of the pleasure and benefits that resulted from the sin. Receive the forgiveness and the cleansing, freely given by God through Christ’s death on the cross [I John 1:7,9], and believe, rejoice, praise and thank him. 
• Resolve to die to the sin in the future, and to live to righteousness by the power of Christ’s death and resurrection, to crucify the flesh and reap the fruit of the Spirit [Romans 6, and Galatians 5:16-26]. Recognise that it will take a lot of time to remove habitual sins from your life, and that you will never be sin-less in this life. Remember that God is never tired of forgiving you the same sin, again and again, that he always delights in forgiving us our sins.
•  Resolve to do the opposite, or the replacement. Turn from the negative, by doing the positive. Apply this principle: ‘the thief must no longer steal, but rather labour with his hands and give to those in need’ [Ephesians 4:28]. 
• Restore the damage, if possible and appropriate, to God and to others. Follow the example of Zacchaeus: ‘Here and now I give half my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anyone out of anything. I will pay back four times the amount’ [Luke 19:8].
•  Rejoice in God’s overwhelming grace, love, forgiveness, cleansing and restoration of us through the Lord Jesus Christ and his death and resurrection, and our hope of our future life with him without sin and sadness.

God is with you.
Rev. Tanya