How Do You Pray Confessing Prayers?
Do you often find it difficult to pray—to have fellowship with God? If we’re honest, we all have to admit that this is our case. We often feel dirty, guilty, and insulated from God.
So how can you “clear the slate?” That is, how can you pray in such a way that you make things right with God so that you can come to Him without hindrance?
The answer is confessing prayers.
So in this post we’ll talk about how to pray confessing prayers that remove our inner guilt and condemnation so that we can enjoy unhindered fellowship with God.
Before we get into the practice, let’s step back to the beginning of the story…
God created us so that we might express Him by enjoying Him and being filled with His life (Gen 1:26; 2:9). But, our forefathers, Adam and Eve, disobeyed God and ate of the wrong tree. Because of this, their conscience was defiled. They felt guilty and naked and hid themselves from God’s presence (Gen 3:6-10).
This is all of our condition. When we consider God, we often feel guilty and unworthy of coming to Him.
Apply the Blood of Jesus to have a conscience that’s void of offense
The organ we need to contact God and fellowship with Him is our spirit (John 4:24).
And our conscience is the leading part of our spirit (Rom 9:1; 8:16). (For more on the parts of man read Chapter Six of The Economy of God on “The Inward and Hidden Parts.” You can read it for free at ministrybooks.org)
So when our conscience is defiled by our consciousness of sins, we find it difficult to fellowship with God. But thankfully, God has made a remedy for our defiled or evil conscience—the cleansing of the blood of Jesus.
Heb. 10:22 says,
“Let us come forward to the Holy of Holies [the place of God’s presence] with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience…”
We need to realize that no amount of regret, good works or time can cleanse those guilty stains—nothing but the blood of Jesus.
Whenever we sense a feeling of guilt, we need to immediately come to the Lord and apply His precious blood.
But how can we appropriate the effectiveness of the Lord’s blood?
Confess your sins according to the shining of God’s light
Confessing our sins should be the normal response to the consciousness of sin we sense when we come into God’s presence. Since God is light (1 John 1:5), when we come before Him, our sins, failures and weaknesses will be exposed and we will sense the need to confess.
1 John 1:7 and 9 tell us,
“But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from every sin…If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
These verses present the conditions for fellowship—walk in the light and confess our sins. Then God is faithful and righteous to do His part—to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. As the Lord’s blood is cleansing us, we enjoy true fellowship with God.
The following quotation from Lessons for New Believers by Witness Lee summarizes the points we’ve covered,
“When we do not deal with our sins by confessing them in God’s light, but rather come hastily before God, abruptly asking for different things, our prayer will not touch God because there is still a barrier. Such prayer and supplication are like beating the air. We must, therefore, have a sincere heart and an open spirit when we come before God in prayer. We need to rely on the Lord’s blood and allow Him to shine in us. Then we need to confess our sins one by one according to God’s shining and the inward sense. This kind of confession is the dealing for prayer. A good prayer is often preceded by dealing with sins through confession. If we know how to pray, we will never neglect dealing with our sins by confessing when we come before God in prayer.” (Lessons for New Believers, Lesson 7, pp. 97-98)
Some practical points for confessing prayer:
- Set aside a personal time for prayer (at least 10-15 minutes per day).
- Call on the Lord and speak to Him in a normal conversational way.
- Simply come before the Lord with a sincere heart and an open spirit. Allow the Lord to shine on you.
- While in His presence, you may sense some sins that need to be confessed.
- Be specific and thorough with your confession, confessing item after item as He touches you.
- Try to practice confessing prayers in a private place. Having others around may restrict the Spirit and frustrate you from fully opening up to the Lord and confessing thoroughly.
- When you are confessing, don’t rush. Give the Lord the adequate time so that you may have a thorough dealing with Him.
- Do not mistake introspection for divine light. Introspection is self-awareness and has no spiritual value. Light is divine enlightenment and will result in spiritual growth in God’s life.
“Dear Lord Jesus, I thank you for dying on the cross for me, for shedding Your sinless blood for all my sins. I confess that I am a sinner and I believe that Your blood answers all the righteous claims of God upon me. Thank you, that Your blood removes the record and cleanses me of all my sins. Remind me to confess my sins every time I think, say or do something that offends You and receive the application of Your blood so that I can maintain uninterrupted fellowship with You. Lord Jesus, I love You. Amen.”
Do you have some helpful experience in praying confessing prayers? Please share the benefit that you have received in a comment to this post.
Additional resources:
- Lesson Seven from Lessons for New Believers by Witness Lee
- The Precious Blood of Christ also by Witness Lee. It is also Chapter Three of The Basic Elements of the Christian Life, Volume One of Bibles for America’s free literature series.
- Chapter Ten, Messages for Building Up New Believers by Watchman Nee
- Hymns and spiritual songs to enrich your confessing prayers:
- O Lord, breathe Thy Spirit on me, / Teach me how to breathe Thee in; / Help me pour into Thy bosom / All my life of self and sin.
- Remove my covering, Lord, / That I may see Thy light, / And be deceived no more, / But all things see aright. (Be sure to View Lyrics)
- God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all! / Oh, how we love within His presence to dwell! / In this light we enjoy a constant cleansing within— / From every sin!
- Photo Credit: tslane88 (Creative Commons)
About Tom Smith
Hi. My name is Tom Smith. I'm the writer behind Holding to Truth in Love, and I love the Lord Jesus and His life-giving Word. Please feel free to send me an e-mail through the contact page if you have any questions. I hope you'd take a moment to subscribe to the Holding to Truth blog. Then you'll be sure not to miss a post. Thanks!
When it comes to confessing sins, it’s also helpful to keep a short account with the Lord. As soon as we’re aware of a sin, even immediately afterward, we can confess that sin. This keeps our conscience clear of offense with God. There’s no need to wait until the “right time” to confess; we can do so right away. And as you mentioned, we need a conscience that’s clear of offense so we can continue fellowshipping with the Lord. Keeping short accounts allows us to maintain our fellowship with our wonderful Lord Jesus.
I develop this very guilty conscience that refuses to let go when I fall into sin. I have this constant reminder of my sin even after I’ve found a way to confess it before God. Its kinda being reminded that I can’t achieve what I want since I’ve fallen for sin. It keeps me depressed most times. But I’m grateful for the information I’ve been able to garner here & I’ll follow it gradually while leaning on God’s Word.
Oge,
I can understand how you feel. I think every sincere Christian that wants to follow the Lord suffers some from condemnation and accusation. Satan is the tempter, seeking to stumble us at every opportunity. The he becomes the accuser, blaming us for the failure. We can only overcome him by the blood of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God. We need to learn to deal with those these that come to us in our fellowship with the Lord. Confess them, trusting in the efficacy of the blood of Jesus and then refuse the unceasing accusations that continue to come from Satan. We need to believe God’s word in 1 John 1:9 which says that “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” We must exercise our faith to stand on God’s sure word and reject Satan’s lies. The Precious Blood of Christ by Witness Lee, is very helpful in developing the points that I have just mentioned. You can read it online at ministrybooks.org or download a free PDF here. It’s chapter three in Basic Elements of the Christian Life, Volume One.
I was interested in my spirit and Holy Spirit difference. This helped me so much
Great! Glad you discovered the difference between the Spirit and your spirit. Romans 8:16 says “The Spirit Himself witnesses with our spirit that we are the children of God.” This verse shows both the distinction and the awesome relationship between these two spirits. May we learn to contact the Spirit by exercising our spirit. Then the divine current of fellowship flows through us like blood circulates through our human body or electricity through electric wires. Just by calling on the the Lord Jesus from deep within we enjoy the union of these two spirits. Thanks for your comment.