Category: ESV First Person

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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)

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ESV First Person Method for Prayer

Introduction and Acknowledgement of the Need for Lowliness before God

Confession 2.0 | ESV

Of the Second Part of Prayer, which is Confession of Sin, Complaints Regarding Ourselves, and Humble Professions of Repentance
Having ascribed glory to God, which is his due, Psalm 29:2(ESV) we must next take shame to ourselves, which is our due, and humble ourselves before him in the sense of our own sinfulness and vileness; and herein also we must give glory to him, Joshua 7:19(ESV) as our Judge, by whom we deserve to be condemned, and yet hope, through Christ, to be acquitted and absolved.

In this part of our work,

We must acknowledge the great reason we have to lie very low before God and to be ashamed of ourselves when we come into his presence and to be afraid of his wrath, having made ourselves both odious to his holiness and obnoxious to his justice.

O my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift my face to you, my God, for my iniquities have risen higher than my head, and my guilt has mounted up to the heavens. Ezra 9:6(ESV)

To me belongs open shame, because I have sinned against you. Daniel 9:8(ESV)

Behold I am of small account, what shall I answer you? I lay my hand on my mouth, Job 40:4(ESV) and put my mouth in the dust, for there may yet be hope, Lamentations 3:29(ESV) crying with the convicted leper under the law, “Unclean, unclean.” Leviticus 13:45(ESV)

You put no trust in your holy ones, and the heavens are not pure in your sight. How much less one who is abominable and corrupt, a man who drinks injustice like water! Job 15:15-16(ESV)

When my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts, I have reason to cry out, “Woe is me, for I am lost!” Isaiah 6:5(ESV)

Dominion and fear are with you; you make peace in your high heaven: Is there any number to your armies? Upon whom does your light not arise? How then can man be in the right before God? How can he who is born of woman be pure? Job 25:2-4(ESV)

But you, you are to be feared! Who can stand before you when once your anger is roused? Psalm 76:7(ESV) You, my God, are a consuming fire; Hebrews 12:29(ESV) and who considers the power of your anger? Psalm 90:11(ESV)

If I claimed to be in the right, my own mouth would condemn me; if I said, “I am blameless,” you would prove me perverse; Job 9:20(ESV) for if you contend with me, I could not answer you once in a thousand times. Job 9:3(ESV)

If I was not aware of anything against myself, yet I am not thereby acquitted, for he who judges me is the Lord, 1 Corinthians 4:4(ESV) who is greater than my heart and knows everything. 1 John 3:20(ESV) But I myself know that I have sinned, Father, against heaven and before you, and am no longer worthy to be called your child. Luke 15:21(ESV)