The following is the Prayer of Repentance which was prayed corporately at the "It's Time" Day of Prayer on 9th September, 2017 at Nutts Corner.
Heavenly Father, we thank You for our Christian heritage from Patrick and the Celtic church until now. We thank You for our history as a ‘land of saints and scholars’, spreading the Gospel to the world. However, today we acknowledge that for many years the world has known our land as a place of hatred and bloodshed. Throughout our history the name of Your Son, Jesus Christ, has been used to justify many things that have brought dishonour to You. Our bitter disputes and hard hearts have driven Your Kingdom from us and we have served the idols of national identity and tribal fears. We confess that we have taken Your Holy name in vain.
We gather together today to own our sins and the sins of our fathers which have stained our land. We are truly sorry and we earnestly repent. Please have mercy on us and forgive us for what we have done against You, what we have done to this land and what we have done to one another. Together we come to the foot of the cross declaring that only Jesus can take away our sins and heal our land.
We recognise that along with the heritage that we have received from You there are weeds and snares of compromise and untruth. We confess fear, mistrust, hatred, violence, negativity, judgementalism, entitlement and complacency. We ask you to release us from all unhealthy bondages of culture, wrong covenants and the unhelpful mindsets of our history, and bring us into the righteousness, peace and joy of the kingdom of God.
Father, Lord of heaven and of every tribe, tongue and nation on Earth. We as Your church affirm that 'All authority in heaven and on earth' belongs to Jesus and He has commissioned us to 'Go make disciples of all nations'.
Today we speak into existence a new mindset in the heavenly realms over our land, that will allow our politicians and all our people to move forward into a peaceful and harmonious future together where there is room for all.
We declare, we will have King Jesus to rule over us, as our only Saviour and Lord, we will serve His Kingdom above all other earthly Kingdoms and we will choose to walk in His footsteps, loving and serving one another – to the glory of God the Father, in the name of Jesus the Son, and in the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
