by Do you feel guilty when you think of God? It’s easy to get in a pattern of blaming ourselves…to immediately think, I don’t spend enough time reading God’s word or Every time I pray, I’m full of me and my needs and wants, and they’re all physical things–health, finances. How about, I don’t do enough for God. Or, I know this is a sin, I’ve tried to stop, but I can’t. I have too many things to confess to ever get caught up… Etcetera. We convince ourselves that we’re failures. That we’re letting Him down.
These inner whisperings work away at us, creating a distance between us and God that is wholly one-sided.
Here’s the truth.
Our sin has been dealt with. God, our Father, has removed it from us who believe, through His Son’s work on the cross. Psalm 103:12 says that He’s removed it from us, “as far as the east is from the west”. 1 Corinthians 6:11 says, “Your sins have been washed away.”
He holds no condemnation against you, dear friend. (Romans 8:1).
Here’s His promise, “Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.” Ezekial 36:26-27
Wait a minute.
Don’t misunderstand me here. We are all sinners. Sin is an attitude of wanting our way over God’s way. Sins exist in our past, our present, and some are ongoing struggles we strive against.
1 John 1:8-9, “If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
Why confess sins if Jesus already paid the price?
Confessing sin is simply agreeing with God that you’ve done something wrong. The above verses are actually encouraging to believers, in fact, if you read 1 John 5:13, you see that John wrote this book so that we believers may know that we have eternal life. One way to know God is in our lives–to *know* we’re in the faith, is to experience His forgiveness, His faithfulness and mercy. We are human and fallible, He is God, and He loves us anyway.
That second part, verse 9, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” is our promise. God won’t count our sins against us. He will remove them from us. And He does this to affirm His faithfulness. Look at these following two verses:
Jeremiah 31:34, “…for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”
If you follow the link to this Jeremiah passage, and start in verse 31, you’ll see that God is foretelling the New Covenant, the one Jesus bought and paid for with His death on the cross. That’s our promise to claim!
Colossians 2:13-14, “When you were dead in your transgressions…He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.” (Italics mine)
I’m still confused. Confessing a list of sins is intimidating. If God doesn’t see sin when He looks at me, why bother?
As a teenager and young person, I worried that I’d forget a sin when confessing. I mean, who can remember every single selfish or unkind thought or action? I’m sure there have been and are sins in my life that I’m not even aware of, perhaps I haven’t been convicted of them yet. But here’s the thing: It’s NOT about confessing a list of sins.
We know our sins have been forgiven by Jesus on the cross, not by our ongoing list of items to confess, right? That’s what Colossians 2:13-14 say above. That God canceled our record of sin and nailed it on the cross. We know we have no hope of ever being able to confess EVERYTHING, right?
So when we “confess” we are doing so for this reason: We are repentant. We desire change. We love God and want a right relationship with Him–friendship aka “fellowship”. This is a humble heart seeking forgiveness, removal of guilt, and God’s assurance that Jesus’ sacrifice paid for it all.
In conclusion…
Jesus covered our sins. When God looks down from Heaven and sees us, He sees us through the filter of His Son in us. Yes, when we sin, when we get caught in the trap of worry or anger or whatever, we need to confess/acknowledge our sins to Him, to restore fellowship. Just as we make things right with our husbands or wives or children after hurting them, rather than letting pride keep us from admitting we’re wrong, and subsequently put its walls up between us and our loved ones. We are God’s bride. And God is ever faithful.
Ask God to show you what He thinks of you. And don’t believe Satan’s lies, because you can be sure, the last thing the great deceiver wants is for you to believe that God can love you. Sin is not the deepest thing about you.
You have a new heart. Believe that.
All scripture references are linked to the full passages at blueletterbible.org, and are taken from the New American Standard Bible.
Gosh, how many of us have said all of or most of those words. We always seem to feel like we are just not quite good enough to be loved and forgiven by our Lord.
I know that my heart is changed, if you knew my past, you would know what I am talking about. I am different, and I still have many emotional issues that need to be dealt with, but My God is greater than any condemnation I bring upon myself and easily forgives me.
This was a powerful post Mary, thank you.
Thanks for dropping by my site again and leaving your comments there. I agree with your thoughts above. You sure do come at this topic from a great perspective. I would point out that it’s important for us to remember that what Jesus did on the cross, the price He paid when He died, was entirely sufficient. II Corinthians tells us that He who knew no sin was made to be sin (or a sin offering) for us, so that we might be made the righteousness of God in Christ. I am perfect in Father’s eyes! I have the righteousness that is from God. That means that it is no longer necessary for me to go around feeling guilty. He washed away *all* my sins. Those I committed before knowing Him, those I have commited since, those I am committing right now, and those that I will commit in the future as my flesh struggles against the spirit.
Kinda makes me wanna SHOUT!
To answer your question; yes, I have been very busy, and consequently I’ve been somewhat silent online. God continues to bless (beyond all comprehension), and as you say elsewhere, He is GOOD ALL THE TIME.
Speaking of link love… do you have an RSS feed? I can’t find it.
Grace and peace Sister!
Larry Eiss’s last blog post..Audio of Messages I Have Given
I was just discussing some of this same stuff with my girls during Bible time. We are going through the minor prophets and some of them are pretty heavy on the judgement end. And God’s ultimate justice. I was trying to explain to them repentance and forgiveness so that they knew and understand that yes, we will sin and God is a righteous judge but Christ also took care of that for us. Heady stuff for a 10 and 7 yo! Well, heady stuff for me, too!
Thanks for a great post. Sorr I don’t comment much lately. Lazy. 😀
Wow that is a wondeful set of words Mary! You dig so deep into what the Bible tells us and make it easy for me to understand. Thank you! Especially now that Lent is here and I need to at some point go to Confession…one of my least favourite things, but now after reading this you make me more confident going in there.
The ‘heart of THIS saint is refreshed by you’, Mary. The nub of this whole truth is faith, isn’t it? I’ll either believe what God has said in the Word, or I won’t. Like you, I choose to believe…and just to think that it pleases my Father when I believe His Word. Heb. 11:6. And one thing that short changes me more than I care to admit is the difficulty of forgiving myself when I have, knowing Him, been anxious or unthankful or carried my own burdens. Know what I mean?
Mary,
Our posts are indeed complimentary. There is an extreme both ways, I think. I love your post here. Something particularly struck me (that is usually breezed over) and I recently heard a great sermon about it as well: the act of confessing. Sometimes I think it’s like we’re just listing our sins nonchalantly. You’re so right in what you said: “when we “confess” we are doing so or this reason: We are repentant. We desire change.”
Leticia, thank you, I’m nodding my head at all you wrote. I think we’ll all have emotional issues for God to teach us through till our dying days. It’s wonderful that He is so patient with us!
Larry, thanks for stopping by, your posts are always so encouraging! I got a big ole smile on my face at your comment, it’s hard to feel any guilt after reading it worded that way! What a lot of condemnation we heap on OURSELVES…. Well, I’m glad to hear your life is busy with good stuff, as far as subscribing to my site, I need to make it more visible. The only way I know to subscribe to my site’s RSS is to click on the little orange and white square up in the http field? It will bring up the info you need. Of course it will have to be on the home page, or you’ll just subscribe to this particular page. Thanks for asking! In the meantime, I’ll try to get a Subscribe to Me box going…
Oh Jana, that is what makes God’s grace through Jesus so much more amazing…knowing from the Old Testament how He judged sin, how much He hates sin. I just love comparing the two covenants, old and new. I’m glad you stopped by, Don’t apologize! 😉
Thank you, Geri! It blessed me too, I just love how God’s word is so applicable to us no matter what time era we live…
Mom, yes, I do relate…the forgiving of self is tied to the guilt that wants to hang on…I love that God’s love is bigger than all my sin and guilt, and He knows how I’ll continue to fail and its covered by His grace!
Amy M, I’m glad for your input. I think that point is so important. When we get nonchalant about it, we’re almost like unrepentant little kids, who know what to say to get back on mom’s good side, but don’t really feel anything in their heart to back it up. I believe that all God wants is for our hearts to be pure. He’s not that interested in us giving Him a litany of sins, but more a humbled overall repentance and willingness to admit we need help/change in these areas.
Thank you all for your comments, they minister to me as well!
Thanks Mary! I got the feed working. Now I’ll know when you post.
Blessings in abundance Sister
Larry Eiss’s last blog post..Audio of Messages I Have Given
To you too, Larry! Thanks for letting me know, you might be my first subscriber! (I have no idea!) 😉
Great post, I hate being outta the blog loop!
I’m just glad you’re back IN the loop, will stop by and see how your past week has been!