Category: ESV First Person

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ESV First Person Method for Prayer

Bewail your Anger, Love of the World, and Love of the Flesh

Confession 2.8 | ESV

The breaking out of passion and rash anger.

I have not had the rule which I ought to have had over my own spirit, which has therefore been like a city broken into and left without walls. Proverbs 25:28(ESV)

I have been quick in my spirit to become angry, and anger has lodged in my bosom. Ecclesiastes 7:9(ESV) And when my spirit has been made bitter, I have spoken rashly with my lips, Psalm 106:33(ESV) and have been guilty of that clamor and bitterness which should have been put far from me. Ephesians 4:31(ESV)

Our covetousness and love of the world.

My life has not been free from love of money, Hebrews 13:5(ESV) nor have I learned in whatever situation I am to be content. Philippians 4:11(ESV)

Who can say that he is clean from that love of money which is the root of all kinds of evil, 1 Timothy 6:10(ESV) that covetousness which is idolatry? Colossians 3:5(ESV)

I have sought great things for myself when you have said, “Seek them not.” Jeremiah 45:5(ESV)

Our sensuality and flesh-pleasing.

I have set my mind on the things of the flesh more than the things of the Spirit, Romans 8:5(ESV) and have lived on the earth in luxury and in self-indulgence, and have fattened my heart in a day of slaughter. James 5:5(ESV)

I have made provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires, Romans 13:14(ESV) even those passions which wage war against my soul; 1 Peter 2:11(ESV) and in many instances, I have acted as if I had been a lover of pleasure rather than a lover of God. 2 Timothy 3:4(ESV)

When I eat and when I drink, do I not eat for myself and drink for myself? Zechariah 7:6(ESV)

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ESV First Person Method for Prayer

Bewail your Many Actual Transgressions, Especially your Pride

Confession 2.7 | ESV

We must likewise bewail our many actual transgressions, in thought, word, and deed.

I have sinned, Father, against heaven and before you: Luke 15:18(ESV) All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; Romans 3:23(ESV) for the God in whose hand is my breath and whose are all my ways, I have not honored. Daniel 5:23(ESV)

Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight; Psalm 51:4(ESV) neither have I obeyed the voice of the LORD my God by walking in his laws, which he has set before me, Daniel 9:10(ESV) though they are holy and righteous and good. Romans 7:12(ESV)

Who can discern his errors? Declare me innocent from hidden faults. Psalm 19:12(ESV)

In many things I stumble, James 3:2(ESV) and my iniquities are more than the hairs of my head. Psalm 40:12(ESV)

As a well keeps its water fresh, so my heart keeps fresh its evil; Jeremiah 6:7(ESV) and this has been my way from my youth up, that I have not obeyed your voice. Jeremiah 22:21(ESV)

Out of the evil treasure of my heart, I have brought forth much evil. Matthew 12:35(ESV)

We must confess and bewail the workings of pride in us.

I have every reason to be humbled for the pride of my heart; 2 Chronicles 32:26(ESV) for I have thought of myself more highly than I ought to think and have not thought with sober judgment, Romans 12:3(ESV) nor have I walked humbly with my God. Micah 6:8(ESV)

I have leaned on my own understanding, Proverbs 3:5(ESV) and trusted in my own mind, Proverbs 28:26(ESV) and have sacrificed to my own net. Habakkuk 1:16(ESV)

I have sought my own glory more than the glory of him who sent me, John 7:18(ESV) and have been arrogant concerning that for which I should have mourned. 1 Corinthians 5:2(ESV)

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ESV First Person Method for Prayer

Lament and Confess your Sins of Omission

Confession 2.6 | ESV

We must lament and confess our omissions of duty, our neglect of it and triflings in it; and that we have done so little since we came into the world of the great work we were sent into the world about, so very little to answer the end of our creation or of our redemption, of our birth and of our baptism; and that we have profited no more by the means of grace.

I have been as a fig tree planted in the vineyard, and you have come many years seeking fruit from me but have found none; and therefore I might justly be cut down and thrown into the fire for using up the ground: Luke 13:6-7(ESV) You have come looking for grapes, but behold wild grapes; Isaiah 5:4(ESV) for I have been an empty vine bringing forth fruit to myself. Hosea 10:1(ESV)

I have known the right thing to do, but have failed to do it. James 4:17(ESV) I have hid my Master’s money, Matthew 25:18(ESV) and therefore deserve the doom of the wicked and slothful servant. Matthew 25:26(ESV)

I have been an unfaithful steward who has wasted my Lord’s possessions; Luke 16:1(ESV) for one sinner destroys much good. Ecclesiastes 9:18(ESV)

Often there has been money in my hand to buy wisdom, yet I have had no sense to; Proverbs 17:16(ESV) or like the fool my heart has been inclined to the left. Ecclesiastes 10:2(ESV)

My youth and dawn of life were vanity, Ecclesiastes 11:10(ESV) and I have brought my years to an end like a sigh. Psalm 90:9(ESV)

I have not known or improved the day of my visitation; Luke 19:44(ESV) have not prepared bread in summer nor gathered food in harvest, though I have had chiefs, officers, and rulers. Proverbs 6:7-8(ESV)

I am slow of heart to understand and believe; Luke 24:25(ESV) and though by this time I ought to be a teacher of others, I am yet to learn the basic principles of the oracles of God: I have need of milk, and cannot bear solid food. Hebrews 5:12(ESV)

I have done away with the fear of God and hindered meditation before God; Job 15:4(ESV) I have not called upon your name, nor roused myself to take hold of you. Isaiah 64:7(ESV)

I have come to you as your people come, and have sat before you as your people sit, and have heard what you have said, when my heart at the same time has been set after gain. Ezekiel 33:31(ESV) And thus have I brought the torn and the lame and the sick for sacrifice; have presented to my God that which I would not have presented to my governor; Malachi 1:8(ESV) and have vowed and sacrificed to the Lord what is blemished, when I had in my flock a male. Malachi 1:14(ESV)

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ESV First Person Method for Prayer

Lament and Confess the Corruption of your Entire Being

Confession 2.5 | ESV

The corruption of the whole man: Irregular appetites towards those things that are pleasing to sense, and inordinate passions against those things that are displeasing, and an alienation of the mind from the principles, powers, and pleasures of the spiritual and divine life.

I am born of the flesh, and I am flesh. John 3:6(ESV) Dust I am: Genesis 3:19(ESV) I have borne the image of the man of dust; 1 Corinthians 15:49(ESV) and in me (that is, in my flesh) dwells nothing good. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out; for I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Romans 7:18-19(ESV)

I have a law in my members my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members; Romans 7:23(ESV) so that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand, Romans 7:21(ESV) and clings to us so closely. Hebrews 12:1(ESV)

The whole head is sick, the whole heart is faint; from the sole of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness in me, but bruises and sores and raw wounds. Isaiah 1:5-6(ESV)

There is in me a bent to turn away from the living God: Hosea 11:7(ESV) My heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick; who can understand them? Jeremiah 17:9(ESV) They start aside like a treacherous bow. Hosea 7:16(ESV)

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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)

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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)

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ESV First Person Method for Prayer

Rely on Jesus Alone for Acceptance with God

Adoration 1.20 | ESV

We must profess our entire reliance on the Lord Jesus Christ alone for acceptance with God and come in his name.

I do not present my plea before you because of my righteousness, Daniel 9:18(ESV) for I am before you in my guilt, Ezra 9:15(ESV) and cannot stand before you because of it; Psalm 130:3(ESV) but I make mention of Christ’s righteousness, even of his only, who is the LORD our righteousness, Jeremiah 23:6(ESV) and therefore the LORD my righteousness.

I know that even spiritual sacrifices are acceptable to God only through Christ Jesus, 1 Peter 2:5(ESV) nor can I hope to receive anything but what I ask of you in his name; John 16:23(ESV) and therefore, bless me in the Beloved, Ephesians 1:6(ESV) that other angel who put much incense to the prayers of the saints and offers them up on the golden altar before the throne. Revelation 8:3(ESV)

I come in the name of the great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, who is able to sympathize with my weaknesses, Hebrews 4:14-15(ESV) and is therefore able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them. Hebrews 7:25(ESV)

Behold, O God, my shield, and look on the face of your Anointed, Psalm 84:9(ESV) in whom you have by a voice from heaven declared yourself to be well pleased; Lord, be well pleased with me in him. Matthew 3:17(ESV)