"Discipline your son, for there is hope;
do not set your heart on putting him to death."

Prayer of repentance from Joel 1:13-14

O Lord God,

I come before tonight in prayer and supplication, asking for your mercies upon Your people, the people that You have redeemed for Yourself, through the saving work of Your Eternal Son, Jesus Christ. O Father, I come before in lamentation, as one of the priests that You have made me according to Your holy gospel. In Your perfect plan, You set apart for Yourself, men from every nation to be a new holy nations of priests to You. So I come, praying and wailing before You as Your Word commands in Joel 1. I come in the night, at the close of the day, remembering the many sins of the people and seeing their faithlessness, my own included, against You and Your new covenant. We have withheld worship and praise of Your holy name, trading them instead for the worship of created things, and failing to worship the Creator who is worthy to be praised forever! Amen. We have not loved You with all our hearts and souls and minds and strength. So many fail to even enter Your house and join with Your people. In our rebellion, we have closed ourselves off to one another, Your holy house, and we have not loved one another as we should. We have withheld the praise and the worship that is fitting for Your people,  we have withheld the obedient lives of mutual love that is appropriate for Your people. O Father, I come in consecration and solemness, help me to gather brothers and sisters in repentant prayer and remorseful supplication for our church. I pray that You will help me to cry out to You with Your people, to gather the different leaders and call a solemn assembly. Help us to be a repenting people, a people who see their sins and weep for them. O Father, help us to pray for our church, for the sinners that make up her full number. We come before You asking You, Holy Spirit to do a consecration, drawing, assembling work. Draw people whose hearts are set on You to come together and pray, that through prayer we may unleash Your power in the world. Lord, Your Word says that when we pray together and when we pray in Your name, whatever we bind on earth is bound in heaven and whatever is released on earth is released in heaven. So I pray that You help to assemble such prayer warriors, who will, through their faithful prayers, rain down all of heaven’s richest blessings upon the church, and beg You, Holy Spirit, to do a reviving, transforming work amongst Your precious people. We think of the church as the bride that You love and gave Your life for, O Lord Jesus. You loved her so much that You were willing to die for her. No greater love is there than that, that You should show us how to love - not that we first loved You, but that You first loved us, and became the propitiation for our sins. We pray that because of Your work in Jesus Christ, will You vindicate Your holy name and Your people, that we may be seen to be the true temple of God, and that Your holy presence is indeed seen to be with us. We pray and ask it desperately in the mighty name of Jesus, Amen.

Idolatry: making gods

“And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf. And they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” (Exodus 32:4 ESV)

“And the man Micah had a shrine, and he made an ephod and household gods, and ordained one of his sons, who became his priest.” (Judges 17:5 ESV)

“So the king took counsel and made two calves of gold. And he said to the people, “You have gone up to Jerusalem long enough. Behold your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.” (1 Kings 12:28 ESV)

“But every nation still made gods of its own and put them in the shrines of the high places that the Samaritans had made, every nation in the cities in which they lived.” (2 Kings 17:29 ESV)

“For great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised, and he is to be feared above all gods.” (1 Chronicles 16:25-26 ESV)

“For all the gods of the peoples are worthless idols,
but the LORD made the heavens.
Splendor and majesty are before him;
strength and beauty are in his sanctuary.” (Psalm 96:5-6 ESV)

“And you see and hear that not only in Ephesus but in almost all of Asia this Paul has persuaded and turned away a great many people, saying that gods made with hands are not gods.” (Acts 19:26 ESV)

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The Sickness Unto Death by Soren Kierkegaard (http://www.religion-online.org/showbook.asp?title=2067)

A world of depravity

Malcolm Muggeridge was right when he said that depravity is the most empirical reality. Progressive humanists are flat out wrong - utopists, idealists, and even triumphalist Christians just need to take a look in the papers and see the world going all wrong.

Surveying the papers at the doctor’s clinic today, I saw:

Racism in Singapore and equally vindictive political responses
“Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.” Colossians 3:11

Divorce in celebrity circles followed with enthusiasm and excitement
“‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” Mark 10:7-9

Pedophilia and power wielded to oppress the innocent and helpless
“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.” Rom 1:18

Violence and anarchy of the poor and marginalized against the rich and wealthy.
“But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.” Luke 13:13-14

But sin isn’t just obvious in the world around us, but inside my own heart. As I think about this fallen world, I’m all the more reminded about the sin that dwells in my own heart. Am I not a racist, an adulterer, an abuser of power and an ungrateful rebel? Oh Lord Jesus, who will deliver me from this body of flesh?

"No one ever believed they were a sinner by being told. They have to be shown…no one ever saw their flaws by being told…no one ever believed God loved them by being told. They have to be shown."

"But the way for him to repent is by God’s grace to believe, to believe and think on Jesus. If he picture to himself the wounded bleeding side the crown of thorns, the tears of anguish—if he takes a vision of all that Christ suffered, I will be bound for it he will turn to him in repentance. I would stake what reputation I may have in spiritual things upon this—that a man cannot, under God’s Holy Spirit, contemplate the cross of Christ without a broken heart."