Prayer For Forgiveness And Reconciliation
Dear Loving Lord, Creator of all,
you created us all in your own image,
one image - many colours,
one image - many cultures.
You made us come togeter like a rainbow,
separate parts but coming together in one creation.
Help us to see the beauty you have created in each and every one of us.
Dear Loving Lord, we are your creation,
hear the cries of your people.
You gave us ears to hear and eyes to see,
open our eyes to what you want us to see,
help us always to look to you to see the wisdom of your ways.
Dear Loving Lord, Creator of all,
you gave us hearts to love and minds to reason.
Help us to understand our differences and grow in love for each other.
Help us to come together as the rainbow comes together, many colours, shining as one creation over all the earth
as you intended us to be.
In the name of your dear Son, Jesus Christ.
Amen.
Holy Father, God of Love,
You are the Creator of all things.
We acknowledge the pain and shame of our history
and the sufferings of Our peoples,
and we ask your forgiveness.
We thank you for the survival of Indigenous cultures
Our hope is in you because you gave your Son Jesus
to reconcile the world to you.
We pray for your strength and grace to forgive,
accept and love one another, as you love us
and forgive and accept us in the sacrifice of your Son.
Give us the courage to accept the realities of our history
so that we may build a better future for our Nation.
Teach us to respect all cultures.
Teach us to care for our land and waters.
Help us to share justly the resources of this land.
Help us to bring about spiritual and social change
to improve the quality of life for all groups
in our communities, especially the disadvantaged.
Help young people to find true dignity and self-esteem by your Spirit.
May your power and love be the foundations
on which we build our families,
our communities and our Nation,
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Father, I know that I have broken your laws and my sins have separated me from you. I am truly sorry, and now I want to turn away from my past sinful life toward you. Please forgive me, and help me avoid sinning again. I believe that your son, Jesus Christ died for my sins, was resurrected from the dead, is alive, and hears my prayer. I invite Jesus to become the Lord of my life, to rule and reign in my heart from this day forward. Please send your Holy Spirit to help me obey You, and to do Your will for the rest of my life. In Jesus' name I pray, Amen.
Lord God, bring us together as one,
reconciled with you and reconciled with each other.
You made us in your likeness,
you gave us your Son Jesus Christ.
He has given us forgiveness from sin.
Lord God, bring us together as one,
different in culture,
but given new life in Jesus Christ,
together as your body, your Church, your people.
Lord God, bring us together as one,
reconciled, healed, forgiven,
sharing you with others as you have called us to do.
In Jesus Christ, let us be together as one.
Amen
Forgive us God, for our empty mouthing; our pious utterances. You have looked behind them and to our shame have found a lack of love and compassion and an unwillingness to work for justice.
We find it hard to express our sorrow. Forgive us.
The Lord says "I don't want your fasting. Your fasting makes you violent and you quarrel and fight. When you fast you make yourselves suffer. Is that what you call fasting? Do you think I will be pleased with that?"
God, you see our narrowness, our lack of enjoyment of life, and our intolerance. Our self-inflicted "though shalt nots" have made us irritable with each other and often unappealing to those outside the church.
We find it hard to express our sorrow. Forgive us.
The Lord says: "The kind of fasting I want is this: Remove the chains of oppression and the yoke of injustice and let the oppressed go free. Share your food with the hungry and open your home to the homeless poor. Give clothes to those who have nothing to wear, and do not refuse to help your own relatives."
Forgive us, O God, we were blind. Now we begin to see what you want of us. Help us to go out from here, to go beyond words and to start living your good news.
"Then my favour" says God, "will shine upon you like the morning sun and your wounds will be quickly healed. Your people will rebuild what has long been in ruins, building again on the old foundations. You will be known as the people who rebuilt the walls, who restored the ruined houses."
We will work together with God to restore creation.
Amen.
God, we are very conscious of the barriers we have built so high between ourselves. We are ashamed of all the time and energy we have spent barricading ourselves from each other.
Jesus, who breaks down all barriers, help us to demolish ours, and be willing to make friends with others.
We bring to you our petty and self-centred anger of hurt pride and wounded feelings that readily lashes out with tongue or fist. And yet not all anger is wrong. We are thankful for that anger which we can be proud of - the sort of anger which berates injustice and fights for the underdog.
Jesus, who shares all our emotions, but who chose always the way of love, forgive us our wrongful anger. Take away our smallness of mind and fill us instead with your far-seeing compassion.
We bring to you our grudges, our hurts and disappointments. We confess that we have nursed them so closely and covered them up so well that they have festered within us. The pain of unreleased hurts is too much to bear.
Jesus, our healer, clean out these wounds within us today we pray. Help us to allow the healthy scar tissue of forgiveness to form.
We remember with shame those we have hurt, trodden on, ignored or dismissed.
Jesus, friend of the outcast, forgive us our insensitive pride. Forgive us for taking as a right all the good things your world offers with no thought for others.
We confess that in all our absorption with self, we have rarely heard your "still small voice". We hear it now though, with frightening clarity. "I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink. I was a stranger and you did not invite me in. I needed clothes and you did not clothe me. I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me."
Jesus, forgive us. Open our eyes. We hear your call at last to open our hearts and homes to the needy around us. You who held nothing back from us expect us to go the extra mile. Help us to give willingly and even joyfully.
Our prayer is heard, we are forgiven. Jesus says, "I love you, live in my love." We are the continuing ministry of Christ's love. Amen.
Dear Lord Jesus, I pray for the salvation of my husband and my marriage. He left for one year came back for six months and now he is leaving again. I pray that you will give him a miracle or a Vision as this is what he waiting for to see what he should do going forward,
I know Dear Lord that for you nothing is impossible and I have seen many miracles of the past two years. I have seen many prayers being answered. I know that you can change a heart of stone to lambs wool. I trust and believe in you with all my heart Lord Jesus and I know that everything happens In Your time. Please help me to be patient. I pray that you give me the strength and wisdom to carry on not only for myself but also for my children. Lord Jesus I have committed many sins and I know that you have forgiven me. I ask that you speak to my husbands heart and ask him to forgive me too and also to forgive himself. Please Jesus I ask you to hear my prayers. I have been married for twenty two years and they were always happy until we sinned and drifted away from each other. I ask you to please show my two beautiful boys the power of God. They are praying for our marriage to be saved. Please hear my prayers. Thank you Lord Jesus Christ the Almighty Father in Heaven.
Gracious and merciful God, the problems facing our human family are very grave and we are no longer isolated from one another. We are confronted daily with our addiction to violence, our hatred and our greed. We are heartbroken. The media are relentless in their presentation and critique and we all long for some good news. It is so easy to forget that your Son, Jesus, is always the good news and that he has given us the remedy for our brokenness. Father, forgive them, they don't know what they are doing. He spoke so clearly. We ask your Holy Spirit to remind us of this again and again. We ask you for the gift of hope in our lives and know that we need to turn to one another for the confidence and assurance that we will emerge from situations, that, in the short term seem hopeless. Banish fear and anxiety from our hearts.
Tonight we gather to affirm one another and to remove the barriers that seem to sour our relationships and keep us at a distance. Heal the short tempers, the crabbiness and the grudges we hold, against one another, against our political system, against our Church, against our financial institutions. We could go on and on. Prompt us to be beacons in the present darkness, and especially beacons to one another. We are all guilty of some selfishness, many of us have lived beyond our means and we become angry and irrational and embrace ideologies that protect our acquisitions. We need your help to stop contributing to the larger greed that tears at our world. We believe in the power of your grace to change our lives and we promise tonight to be once again open to that grace. Bless us with a peaceful spirit and a desire to be reconciled with one another.
Amen.