Prayer 101

Prayer 101

Read Daniel 7:1–12:13

4. “O Lord, you are a great and awesome God! You always fulfill your covenant and keep your promises of unfailing love to those who love you and obey your commands.
5. But we have sinned and done wrong. We have rebelled against you and scorned your commands and regulations.
6. We have refused to listen to your servants the prophets, who spoke on your authority to our kings and princes and ancestors and to all the people of the land.
7. Lord, you are in the right; but as you see, our faces are covered with shame. This is true of all of us, including the people of Judah and Jerusalem and all Israel, scattered near and far, wherever you have driven us because of our disloyalty to you.
8. O Lord, we and our kings, princes, and ancestors are covered with shame because we have sinned against you.” Daniel 9:4-8

The word confession holds very different meanings for different people. Some think of it as an out-of-date religious custom. Others have good memories of relieving a guilty conscience in the privacy of a confessional. Still others think of the humiliation of secret sins being publicly revealed in a courtroom. What connotations does the word confession hold for you?

Confession has an important place in this set of prophecies. All of Daniel 7:1–12:13 concerns the future, and a lot of it does not bode well for God’s people. As Daniel learns the bad news, he prays . . . and confesses.

Daniel loved God and wanted to do God’s will, yet the prayer he recorded in Daniel 9 included his confession of sin (Daniel 9:3-19). We have no record of any of Daniel’s mistakes or sins. The book of Daniel always portrays him as an exceptional man of God. But even Daniel had offended God (see Romans 3:23-24), and he shared in the guilt of his people’s rebellion. So in Daniel’s prayers he took responsibility for the sins that he and his people had committed. He didn’t gloss over them, excuse them, minimize them, or deny them. He admitted his guilt and placed it in God’s merciful hands.

That’s the pattern of confession that every believer should follow. Whenever we pray, we should openly admit our sins. We should not deny the faults we have and the sins we commit.

Like Daniel, be honest with God. Confess your sins to him and feel clean, relieved, prepared to serve him—forgiven.