Day 5

Honest Prayer

One of the great confidences we have in coming to the Father in prayer is to know that we can bring all our wrong before Him and trust Him to forgive and restore. Confession and repentance are essential to our prayer life and in dealing with our sin. Confession is acknowledging that we’ve done something wrong and openly seeing our sin for what it is. Repentance is a choice to turn away from sin and move forward in righteousness.

We won’t always get things right in life. In fact, sometimes we get it really wrong. Praise Jesus that He has accomplished the finished work on the cross so that we have the assurance of the forgiveness of our sin! There’s no special prayer that must be prayed to receive forgiveness. Rather we simply come, honest and open, to tell God we’re sorry for the wrong we’ve done and to ask for His forgiveness. When we confess, forgiveness is immediate, complete, and restorative!

Right on the heels of confession is repentance. It calls us to an awareness of our need to ask God for wisdom to turn away from and avoid moving toward anything harmful. Forgive us our debts…and lead us not into temptation… [Matthew 6:12-13].

The beautiful kindness of God and His great love for us is what moves our hearts to confession and repentance. Take a few minutes today and ask the Holy Spirit to reveal anything that you need to make right with God.

LET GOD’S LIVING WORD SPEAK TO YOU TODAY:

Psalm 32:1-5

Romans 2:4

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