Category: NIV First Person

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Method for Prayer NIV First Person

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

Confession 2.3 | NIV

I must lament my present corrupt disposition to that which is evil, and my aversion to and impotency in that which is good. I must look into my own heart and confess with holy blushing:

The blindness of my understanding and its unaptness to admit the rays of the divine light.

By nature I am darkened in my understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in me due to the hardening of my heart. Ephesians 4:18(NIV)

The things that come from the Spirit of God are foolishness to the man without the Spirit, and, if left to myself, I cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. 1 Corinthians 2:14(NIV)

I am skilled in doing evil; I know not how to do good. Jeremiah 4:22(NIV) I know nothing, I understand nothing; I walk about in darkness. Psalm 82:5(NIV)

God speaks – now one way, now another – though I may not perceive it. Job 33:14(NIV) I am ever hearing but never understanding; Matthew 13:14(NIV) and I see people, yet they look like trees walking around. Mark 8:24(NIV)

The stubbornness of my will and its unaptness to submit to the rules of the divine law.

I have within me a sinful mind, which is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Romans 8:7(NIV)

You have written for me the many things of your law, but I have regarded them as something alien; Hosea 8:12(NIV) and my corrupt heart has been sometimes ready to say, “Who is the Almighty, that I should serve him?” Job 21:15(NIV) And that I would certainly do everything I said I would. Jeremiah 44:17(NIV) For I have followed the ways of my own heart and whatever my eyes have seen. Ecclesiastes 11:9(NIV) I have followed my sinful nature’s desires and thoughts. Ephesians 2:3(NIV)

The sinews of my neck have been iron, Isaiah 48:4(NIV) and I have made my heart as hard as flint. I have refused to pay attention; stubbornly I have turned my back, Zechariah 7:11-12(NIV) and stopped up my ears like a cobra that will not heed the tune of the charmer, however skillful the enchanter may be. Psalm 58:4-5(NIV)

How I have hated discipline! How my heart has spurned correction! I have not obeyed my teachers or listened to my instructors. Proverbs 5:12-13(NIV)

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Method for Prayer NIV First Person

Confess and Bewail your Original Corruption

Confession 2.2 | NIV

I must therefore confess and bewail my original corruption in the first place: that I am the child 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 my nature.

ord, you made mankind upright, but men have gone in search of many schemes; Ecclesiastes 7:29(NIV) and despite his riches, man does not endure; he is like the beasts that perish. Psalm 49:20(NIV)

Through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned: Romans 5:12(NIV) Through that one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, including me. Romans 5:19(NIV)

I am of a brood of evildoers; Isaiah 1:4(NIV) my father was an Amorite and my mother a Hittite, Ezekiel 16:3(NIV) and I myself was called (and not miscalled) a rebel from birth; and well do you know how treacherous I am. Isaiah 48:8(NIV)

The nature of man was planted a choice vine of sound and reliable stock, but it has become a corrupt, wild vine, Jeremiah 2:21(NIV) producing the grapes of Sodom and the clusters of Gomorrah. Deuteronomy 32:32(NIV) How the gold has lost its luster, and the fine gold become dull! Lamentations 4:1(NIV)

Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me. Psalm 51:5(NIV) For, who can bring what is pure from the impure? No one! Job 14:4(NIV) Like the rest, I am by nature an object of wrath, because a child of disobedience. Ephesians 2:2-3(KJV)

All people have corrupted their ways; Genesis 6:12(NIV) we have all turned aside, we have together become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one. Psalm 14:3(NIV)

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Method for Prayer NIV First Person

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

Confession 2.1 | NIV

I must take hold of the great encouragement God has given me to humble myself before him with sorrow and shame, and to confess my sins.

If you, O LORD, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness; therefore you are feared. Psalm 130:3-4(NIV) With you is unfailing love; yes, with my God is full redemption; he himself will redeem Israel from all their sins. Psalm 130:7-8(NIV)

Your sacrifices, O God, are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise; Psalm 51:17(NIV) indeed, though you are the high and lofty One – he who lives forever, whose name is holy; Isaiah 57:15(NIV) though heaven is your throne, and the earth is your footstool, yet this is the one you esteem: he who is humble and contrite in spirit, and trembles at your word; Isaiah 66:1-2(NIV) to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite. Isaiah 57:15(NIV)

You have graciously assured me that he who conceals his sins does not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy. Proverbs 28:13(NIV) And when a poor penitent said, “I will confess my transgression to the LORD,” you forgave the guilt of his sin; therefore, let everyone who is godly, in like manner, pray to you while you may be found. Psalm 32:5-6(NIV)

I know that if I claim to be without 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 and will forgive me my sins and purify me from all unrighteousness. 1 John 1:8-9(NIV)