4. Repentance

Search me, O God, and know my heart… And see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
— Psalm 139:23-24

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
— 1 John 1:9

But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.
— 1 John 1:7

Having opened yourself in surrender, ask God’s Holy Spirit to search your heart and to show you of anything that needs to be changed. As He convicts you of sin, do not rationalize. No matter how trivial it may appear to you, immediately confess it, receive the cleansing of Christ’s blood, and determine to make any confessions or restitution to others that are needed. The following prayer could get you started:

Sample Prayer of Repentance

Heavenly Father, I ask Your forgiveness for all the ways I have offended You, knowingly or unknowingly. I have sinned in thought, motive, word, and deed. I have sinned in what I have done and in what I have failed to do. I come before You to ask You to give me a repentant heart. You know my inmost secrets. I open my heart to You and ask that You would search it, and show me all that You want me to confess today…[wait for the Lord to do His searching. Then confess them as they are revealed. If nothing immediately comes to mind, begin praying what parts of the following are relevant:]

… I ask forgiveness for sins against purity: roving eyes, sexual fantasies, and especially _____________________. I turn away from all those activities and turn to You. I deeply repent of having ____________________________ _________________.

I repent of any compulsive behavior: over-drinking, drugs, gambling, over-preoccupation with sex, food, and especially ______________________. Thank you, Father, for setting me free.

I repent of not taking care of my physical and emotional health; for lack of balance in nutrition, rest, and exercise. I make a commitment to take care of myself today.

I repent of the times that I have hurt other people. I ask You to forgive me for my lack of affirming of others, brushing people off, coldness, unloving and inconsiderate behavior. I repent of having lied by stretching the truth, defrauding or deliberately deceiving. I repent of stealing. I repent of envy, hatred, resentment, jealousy, bitterness, coldness toward others, and especially for _____________________.

I bring before You the things that I have been most ashamed of and have covered up for so long. I no longer want to hide them from You or from myself.

I accept Your forgiveness, liberation, and healing, believing that You are “faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). In Jesus’ name I ask this, Amen.

Another important exercise in repentance is covenantally repenting on behalf of your family, or your church, or your nation. Though we may not be personally guilty of the sins of our nation, like Daniel and Nehemiah, we can confess the sins of our nation since we are covenantally a part of that nation. The following prayer from the Coalition on Revival was drafted and prayed by leaders from 70 different churches. It is well thought through. It is appropriate to confess the bride’s sins as one who is connected with her.

Prayer of Repentance on Behalf of the Church

1. We have failed to care adequately for the souls of men who will spend eternity in the fires of hell if they fail to receive for themselves the atoning blood of Christ, bowing their knees before Him as Lord of their lives and King of the universe;
2. We have disobeyed God’s clear commands in Scripture;
3. We have built our own egos rather than advancing the Kingdom of Christ;
4. We have all too often fallen short of the integrity, faithfulness, and total honesty with each other that God requires of us before the watching world;
5. We have failed to confront falsehood and unrighteousness consistently in the Church or in the world because of our fear of man and of losing prestige or security;
6. We have been content to reduce the power of the transcendent gospel to mere creedal form devoid of spiritual content or present reality by our harlotry with the idols of personal peace and affluence;
7. We have neglected our God-ordained duties to be the world’s salt, light, teacher, and example; as a result, the world is in desperate trouble and western civilization stands on the brink of self-destruction;
8. We and our fathers have settled for a sub-standard, false version of Christianity in our local churches and denominations;
9. We have tolerated sin within our ranks when we should have administered church discipline and excommunication;
10. We have allowed heresies to creep into our churches and institutions of higher learning, failing to demand of our teachers that they teach and stand upon the faithful and inerrant written Word of God;
11. We have heaped to ourselves teachers and pastors to tickle our ears with pleasant falsehoods and entertaining fables rather than convicting us of sin and demanding that we live righteous lives of obedience to the Bible;
12. We sold our children’s minds and souls to the godless influence of secularized education and the media;
13. We have allowed our churches to become irrelevant, powerless ghettos while those who hate or neglect God and His righteous standards for society have stolen the America of our founding fathers out from under our slumbering eyes;
14. We have allowed misguided policies, flagrant sins, and hideous atrocities to be enacted by our elected and appointed officials – legislative, executive, and judicial without rising up en masse, and demanding that they be corrected in the name of God and for the sake of justice;
15. We have permitted both Christian and non-Christian men of our society to fail in leadership, becoming emasculated, tamed, dependent, self-centered, and soft; and, in the opposite extreme, we have allowed some men to abuse their authority by their lack of sacrificial love for their families;
16. We have lived beyond our means by misusing credit, so trading our liberty for financial bondage;
17. We have adopted the covetousness and materialism of our surrounding culture, seeking the approval of men and neglecting the fear of the Lord;
18. We have been caught up in a self-centered, false version of Christianity, focusing on our own needs and desires rather than on God’s glory and on sacrificing ourselves for the needs of our Christian brothers and fellow humans;
19. We have concerned ourselves more with Heaven, the future, and escaping this world at Christ’s Second Coming, than with preparing His Bride to be spotless, beautiful, glorious, and pleasing to Him when He comes;
20. We foolishly have allowed Satan to divide us from other members in His Body through pride, jealousy, and competition, through a lack of humble serving of one another, and by concentrating on divisive minor issues rather than the clear Biblical articles of faith upon which we agree;
21. We have rested, idle and uncaring, while Satanically inspired Marxist Communism and a revival of pagan religions has enslaved two-thirds of our planet, causing massive, needless suffering to the peoples under their sway;
22. We have failed to conduct our lives or manage our affairs in the conscious certainty that God’s eternal standards for personal and social righteousness are unchanging and inexorable in their absolute cause-and-effect relationships, thus dishonoring God and playing the fool in our personal lives and social policies;

Therefore:

1. In brokenness and humility, we cast ourselves before the throne of Almighty God beseeching Him to forgive these sins of ours and our fathers that we have so grievously and callously committed against Him, against each other and against the dying world. We call upon our Father in Heaven to apply to these our sins the purifying, atoning blood of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
2. In repentance, shame, and sorrow we ask our fellow Christians (all whom we have offended, ignored, and despised; before whom we have not been honest, open, vulnerable and tender; and whose ministries we have falsely believed we could do well without) to forgive us in the name of Jesus and for the sake of His glory and the unity of His Body. We hereby declare that we forgive all Christian brothers and sisters who have so treated us.
3. In shame and sorrow, we ask forgiveness of those fellow humans who have not bowed their knee to Jesus as King of the universe or yet come under the saving power of His shed Blood.

Forgive us for caring so little for your souls that we have not ministered more aggressively and lovingly to you about your eternal destiny and your fear of death. Forgive us for our attempts to evangelize you that have been impersonal, mechanical, or insensitive.

Forgive us for displaying before you ugly, uninspiring lives devoid of God’s integrity, compassion, and power.

Forgive us for being such poor examples of Christ’s love by our disunity, that you have rejected both Him and us, to your own spiritual impoverishment.

Forgive us for our failure to demonstrate to you biblical answers for your difficulties and problems in life.

Forgive us for failing to occupy our proper position as servants in the affairs of law, government, economics, business, education, media, the arts, medicine, and science as the Creator’s salt and light to the world, so that these spheres of life might offer you more help, justice, hope, peace, and joy.

We have failed you miserably and we beg you to forgive us in the name of the great God who created us all for His glory.

And now, O God, forgive our willful disobedience, hardness of heart, and selfish indulgence. Hear our prayers, forgive our sin, and heal our land, O Lord; thus fulfilling the merciful promise of your Word.

“O Lord, hear! O Lord, forgive! O Lord, listen and take action! For Thine own sake, O my God, do not delay, because Thy people are called by Thy name.” (Daniel 9: 19)