Category: ESV First Person

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ESV First Person Method for Prayer

Lament and Confess your Vain Thoughts and Carnal Affections

Confession 2.4 | ESV

The vanity of our thoughts, their neglect of those things which they ought to be conversant with and dwelling upon those things that are unworthy of them and tend to corrupt our minds.

Every intention of the thoughts of my heart is evil, only evil, and that continually, Genesis 6:5(ESV) and it has been so from my youth. Genesis 8:21(ESV)

O how long have those wicked thoughts lodged within us! Jeremiah 4:14(ESV) Like the devising of folly, those thoughts are sin. Proverbs 24:9(ESV) From within, out of the heart, come evil thoughts, Matthew 15:19(ESV) which devise evil on the bed, Micah 2:1(ESV) and carry the heart with the fool’s eyes to the ends of the earth. Proverbs 17:24(ESV)

But God is not in all my thoughts; Psalm 10:4(ESV) it is well if he is in any of them. Of the Rock that bore me, I have been unmindful and have forgotten the God who gave us birth: Deuteronomy 32:18(ESV) I have forgotten him days without number, Jeremiah 2:32(ESV) and our hearts have gone after worthlessness and become worthless. Jeremiah 2:5(ESV) My inward thought having been that my houses should continue forever; this, my way, is the path of those who have foolish confidence. Psalm 49:11-13(ESV)


The carnality of our affections, their being placed upon wrong objects and carried beyond due bounds.

I have set my mind on things beneath, which should have been set on things above, where my treasure is, Matthew 6:21(ESV) where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God; Colossians 3:1-2(ESV) these are the things which we should seek.

I have paid regard to vain idols and forsaken our hope of steadfast love; Jonah 2:8(ESV) have forsaken the fountain of living waters, for cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water. Jeremiah 2:13(ESV)

I have trampled the head of the poor into the dust of the earth, Amos 2:7(ESV) and have been anxious concerning what I shall eat and what I shall drink and what I shall wear, the things after which the Gentiles seek. Matthew 6:31-33(ESV)

I have lifted up my soul to what is false, Psalm 24:4(ESV) and set my eyes on that which is nothing; have looked at the things that are seen, which are temporal, but the things that are eternal have been forgotten and postponed. 2 Corinthians 4:18(ESV)

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ESV First Person Method for Prayer

Lament your Disposition to Evil and Confess your Blind Understanding and Stubborn Will

Confession 2.3 | ESV

We must lament our present corrupt dispositions to that which is evil, and our aversion to and impotency in that which is good. We must look into our own hearts and confess with holy blushing:

The blindness of our understandings and their unaptness to admit the rays of the divine light.

By nature my understanding is darkened, being alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in me, due to the hardness of my heart. Ephesians 4:18(ESV)

The things of the Spirit of God are folly to the natural person; neither can I understand them, in and of myself, because they are spiritually discerned. 1 Corinthians 2:14(ESV)

I am ‘wise’ – in doing evil! But how to do good I know not. Jeremiah 4:22(ESV) I have neither knowledge nor understanding, I walk about in darkness. Psalm 82:5(ESV)

God speaks in one way, and in two, though I do not perceive it; Job 33:14(ESV) I indeed hear but never understand; Matthew 13:14(ESV) and I see men, but they look like trees, walking. Mark 8:24(ESV)

The stubbornness of our wills and their unaptness to submit to the rules of the divine law.

I have within me a mind that is set on the flesh, which is hostile to God and does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Romans 8:7(ESV)

Were you to write for me your laws by the ten thousands, they would be regarded by me as a strange thing; Hosea 8:12(ESV) and my corrupt heart has been sometimes ready to say, “What is the Almighty, that I should serve him?” Job 21:15(ESV) And, “I will do everything that I have vowed.” Jeremiah 44:17(ESV) For I have walked in the ways of my own heart and in the sight of my eyes, Ecclesiastes 11:9(ESV) carrying out the desires of the flesh and the mind. Ephesians 2:3(ESV)

My neck has been an iron sinew, Isaiah 48:4(ESV) and I have made my heart diamond-hard; I have refused to pay attention, have turned a stubborn shoulder, Zechariah 7:11-12(ESV) and stopped my ears like the deaf adder that will not hear the voice of charmers or of the cunning enchanter. Psalm 58:4-5(ESV)

How I have hated discipline, and my heart despised reproof! I did not listen to the voice of my teachers or incline my ear to my instructors. Proverbs 5:12-13(ESV)

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ESV First Person Method for Prayer

Confess and Bewail your Original Corruption

Confession 2.2 | ESV

We must therefore confess and bewail our original corruption in the first place: that we are the children of apostate and rebellious parents, and the nature of man is depraved and has wretchedly degenerated from its primitive purity and rectitude, and such is our nature.

Lord, you made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes; Ecclesiastes 7:29(ESV) and being in honor, they did not understand, and therefore did not remain, but became like the beasts that perish. Psalm 49:20(ESV)

Through one man sin came into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned: Romans 5:12(ESV) By that one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, including me. Romans 5:19(ESV)

I am the offspring of evildoers; Isaiah 1:4(ESV) my father was an Amorite and my mother a Hittite; Ezekiel 16:3(ESV) and I myself was called (and not miscalled) a rebel from before birth, and you knew I would deal treacherously. Isaiah 48:8(ESV)

The nature of man was planted a choice and noble vine, wholly of pure seed, but it has turned degenerate and become a wild vine, Jeremiah 2:21(ESV) producing the grapes of Sodom and the clusters of Gomorrah. Deuteronomy 32:32(ESV) How the gold has grown dim, how the pure gold is changed! Lamentations 4:1(ESV)

Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. Psalm 51:5(ESV) For, who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? There is not one. Job 14:4(ESV) I am by nature a child of wrath, because a child of disobedience, like the rest of mankind. Ephesians 2:2-3(ESV)

All flesh has corrupted their way; Genesis 6:12(ESV) we have all turned aside; together we have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one. Psalm 14:3(ESV)

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ESV First Person Method for Prayer

Take Hold of the God-Given Encouragement you Have to Confess Sin

Confession 2.1 | ESV

We must take hold of the great encouragement God has given us to humble ourselves before him with sorrow and shame, and to confess our sins.

If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared; Psalm 130:3-4(ESV) with you there is steadfast love; yes, with my God there is plentiful redemption, and he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities. Psalm 130:7-8(ESV)

Your sacrifices, O God, are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise; Psalm 51:17(ESV) indeed, though you are the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy; Isaiah 57:15(ESV) though heaven is your throne and the earth your footstool, yet this is the one to whom you will look: he who is poor and humble, broken and contrite in spirit, and trembles at your word; Isaiah 66:1-2(ESV) to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite. Isaiah 57:15(ESV)

You have graciously assured me that those who conceal their transgressions will not prosper, yet those who confess and forsake them will obtain mercy. Proverbs 28:13(ESV) And when a poor penitent said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD,” you forgave the iniquity of his sin; therefore, let everyone who is godly, in like manner, offer prayer to you at a time when you may be found. Psalm 32:5-6(ESV)

I know that if I say I have no sin, I deceive myself, and the truth is not in me; but you have said that if I confess my sins, you are faithful and just to forgive me my sins and to cleanse me from all unrighteousness. 1 John 1:8-9(ESV)