Good guidance in our prayer life can be found in today’s Psalm:

Psa 19:12  How can I know all the sins lurking in my heart? Cleanse me from these hidden faults.

In today’s culture of empowerment, you’d think that we are these perfect, special people, each one of us are good in our own special way, which is actually a bunch of baloney, the reality is that there is nothing more depraved than the human heart.  As Jeremiah 19:11 tells us “The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?…so this really flies in the face of today’s feel good culture that says we should embrace our faults.  

Conversely, today’s verse says our hearts are full of so many sins and evil desires that we can’t even keep track of them, and then David goes on to say “Lord please forgive me of these sins that I don’t even know about”. 

If we have learned one thing from the Bible, and the historical narratives of ancient Israel, is that man loves sin, it’s part of our fallen nature, it’s instinctive, and today’s Word reminds us that when we go to God in prayer, to ask for forgiveness of the sins we both knowingly and unknowingly commit, fortunately – Christ, our great advocate, takes those sins away when we put our trust in His and follow Him.