Father you are gracious and compassionate, your lovingkindness is abundant and without measure. You are maker of all things, the definer of right and wrong, the holy and righteous judge who will reign forever. 

Through your Word and your Son and your Spirit, you have made yourself known to us and you help us to see who we are. You help us to see that we are sinners in need of forgiveness, so we come to confess our sins now. 

We confess to you because it is against you, and you only, that we sin and do what is evil in your sight. 

Forgive us when we sin against each other – when we are rude toward others, when we express anger toward each other, when we do not seek their best interests, when we reject each other, when we withhold ourselves from others, when we don’t love others as you’ve commanded. 

Forgive our hidden sins – our bitterness, envy, hatred, when we worry and are anxious about what we cannot control, when we doubt you and your word, when we only seek our own interests and not those of Christ.  

Forgive our idolatry, when we love something or someone more than you – when we love our comfort more than you, our money, our homes, our family. We are all prone to idolatry, and apart from you working in our hearts, we will remain there.  

We know that we are born in sin, dead from the start. We know there is nothing good in us and we need you to make us alive, to put new hearts in us.  

For those who are in Christ, you have done that. You have created in us clean hearts and put a steadfast spirit in us – a believing, trusting, confessing spirit. You have made us new, cleansing us from our sin, promising to never leave us nor forsake us. 

We confess our sins, knowing that you will forgive, that you have forgiven, us in Christ. And that every single one of those sins – sins that we see, sins that we don’t see, sins that we don’t even know about yet – have been washed clean in Christ.  

So because of that forgiveness, we can come near to you in worship, we can come to you boldly in prayer, we can know that you hear us and will act. 

Amen.