Loving Lord and Father of all, I’ve broken the first commandment, the one that says: ‘You shall have no other gods before Me.’ (Exodus 20:3 NIV) I wasn’t intending to violate it.

In fact, I was taking great care not to have anything higher in life than You. But I’m beginning to understand that my false refuges start out as comfort zones and end up as fortresses where Your enemies make themselves at home. They are strongholds to keep You out and Your enemies in. These ungodly ones share space with me with the long-term agenda of gaining my complete complicity against You.

So slowly, slowly, slowly, they suck me dry and cause my calling in You to be barren and subtly, subtly, subtly they teach me to be ever more disappointed in You—because they know that’s the way I’ll learn to sacrifice to them and worship them.

At last I’m beginning to understand the depths of what Paul wrote when he said: ‘I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh; for I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.’ (Romans 7:18 BSB)

Loving Lord and Father of all mercy, You know all this but I confess that I’ve not only got agreements with Your enemies, I’ve got pacts and promises I know nothing about. Some of these are my own words that, unintended, have become witnesses against me in the spirit realm. Some of these are covenantal vows coming down my family line that have never been rescinded.  I’m sure I don’t even know the half of it. Maybe not even the hundredth of it.

But I know the power of the blood of Jesus is able to cut through all this. I know it is able to cover and restore all that is wrong in my life and all that is wrong in me.

I am sorry for serving other gods, consciously and unconsciously. I am sorry for relying on the passing of Time rather than Your Passover. I am sorry for depending on things You’ve created to get me through crises, instead of going to You as my refuge. Forgive me. I repent and I ask Jesus of Nazareth to take the words I have just spoken and empower them to achieve the turnaround in heart, mind, soul and strength that You desire.

I ask the Holy Spirit to continue to expose in me all that is not surrendered to you—all the ways I’ve yielded to the lure of false refuges without knowing.

I ask Jesus to call forth in me the ability to obey His command: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ (Mark 12:29–30 ESV)

In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Thank you to Lorna Skinner of www.riversofmusic.co.uk for the background music.