Wednesday, April 10, 2013 -- What's Wrong (3)

It’s time to agree with God and our own conscience about the exact nature of our wrongs.  The sooner we can admit those wrongs to ourselves and to God, the better off we will be.   God sees the damage of sinful choices and hates the destructive impact on people He deeply loves.  When we finally face the reality of our sinning, it is helpful to recall God’s kind and merciful nature.  No sin is too great to be forgiven. Jesus has paid the price for our forgiveness with his death on the cross.  We do not have to earn forgiveness but we do have to acknowledge our need for it and receive it.   

The Bible tells us that if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness. (1 John 1:9 NLT). 

When we choose to live in truth, we find the internal peace that we lost so long ago. God floods us with forgiveness. God promises us: "No matter how deep the stain of your sins, I can remove it. I can make you as clean as freshly fallen snow. Even if you are stained as red as crimson, I can make you as white as wool."  (Isaiah 1:18 NLT)

The purpose of confessing the exact nature of our wrongs is neither to condemn us nor in any way to tone down the ugliness.  Confessing admits how awful our actions were.  Only in the acceptance of that ugly truth do we realize the deep love of God for us that allowed the horror of Jesus’ death on the cross for our redemption. 

Part of admitting the exact nature of our wrongs is accepting complete forgiveness from God. It’s wrong to keep track of our failures, or the impact of the failures of others, once we’ve come to God.  Why?  Because in God’s eyes, we are now clean, and in God’s care, we can now live safely and in love with others, regardless of past wrongs.  All is made new in Christ.  We may need to learn how to walk with new thoughts and learn new behaviours that reflect God’s goodness in our lives, but the grounding of our lives has changed forever.

If we don’t come out of an experience of confession to God with overwhelming gratitude for God’s forgiveness and a deep desire to surrender moment by moment to the new way of life God is showing, then we’ve missed something.  We either haven’t believed how bad our actions really were or how deep God’s love truly is.  We continue living in the deadly arrogance that we know better than God.  We still don’t realize “the exact nature of our wrongs.” Done with integrity and humility, confession of our wrongs always gives us a new desire and commitment to know and walk with God, whatever the cost to our thinking and our behaving. 

Will we confess the exact nature of our wrongs?  Will we repent by turning away from our own understanding and behaving and enter into the fullness of life we’ve been looking for that comes from Jesus who says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6 NLT)