Confession & Communion

Prayer

O Lord our God, we give you praise for your wondrous deeds and your thoughts toward us. There is none in all heaven and earth who can compare to you. You are unmatched in your worth and being, and in every way. Blessed is the man who makes you his trust. 

Lord, we confess that we deserve none of your kind thoughts toward us or your merciful deeds. It is only your wonderful acts of judgment and wrath that we deserve. For we confess that we have not always made you our trust. We have turned to the proud and gone astray after lies. We have failed to proclaim your wonders as we ought.

But Lord, we confess our sins, that we may find forgiveness and life through Jesus your Son. We give you thanks for the wondrous deed of salvation wrought by the precious blood of Jesus that covers all our sins. May that blood cover us today. We give you thanks that you have thought upon us in mercy, to love us and save us when we did not love you.

May you equip us today, through your means of grace, to proclaim your gospel and to go and tell the world of all your work through Christ our Lord. May you make us renewed in our strength to live unto you and make you our trust, that we may not go after the proud and their lies. And may there be no idols in our hearts and lives that compare to you.

Communion

As we come to the Lord’s Table week after week, we are reminded that our sins are forgiven, for the bread and wine reminds us of the body and blood of Christ that is “for you.” His life, death, and resurrection, is for your benefit and for your good. It is a reminder that we need week after week, for we sin week after week. So confess your sins, and come and eat of Christ’s flesh and blood for eternal life.

And when Jesus forgives our sins. He doesn’t sort of forgive them. He doesn’t partially forgive them. And He doesn’t pretend to forgive them. No, He actually does forgive them: totally, fully, finally. In a word: removes them from us and from His sight, as far as the East is from the West. So we can confess them and come with thankfulness to the table that He has spread for us. We can come in faith, believing that His body and blood is “for us.”