God Is Merciful to Me

A Lutheran prayer of confession and confident trust:

Dear God, before you I confess that I am a great sinner. The Ten Commandments would drive me and commit me directly to hell. But your precious gospel teaches me to know and believe that out of love you have established a kingdom through Jesus Christ. In it you will be merciful and will help forlorn and condemned sinners. So I say my confession of faith and sin in one word: I am truly a sinner, but God is merciful to me. I am your enemy, but you are my friend. I deserve condemnation, yet I know that you do not want to condemn me. 

You want me to be blessed and to inherit heaven. This is indeed your will. You have permitted this truth to be preached to me and have commanded me to believe it, for the sake of your Son whom you have given for me. Amen. 

 —Martin Luther, Luther's Prayers (ed. Herbert F. Brokering; Augsberg: Minneapolis, 1994), 71-72.