Category: Spiritual

EXPERIENCE GRACE: CONFESS BEFORE GOD

We have judges in this world, and they serve a clear and needed purpose. But God is our eternal judge, and He knows the truth of a situation and the hearts of men and women regardless of the world’s judgments. Do you trust that?

True confession leads to true healing because we stop trying to solve our problem and seek Him to wash us clean. It is turning away from pride and turning toward Him. We are already forgiven, we just need to accept it. James 4:6 says that God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.

The day I turned to God for cleansing changed my life forever. I had finally realized there was nothing else that could take away the burdens I carried. It was the moment I realized I was really free.

Jesus tells us, “Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:29-30).

It is by His grace that we are forgiven. Ephesians says, “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace.” This is a great post on why confession is a good thing.

If we trust God and believe His word, we can stand on His promises, such as these three:

  • “I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity; I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,’ and you forgave the iniquity of my sin.” (Psalm 32:5)
  • “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9)
  • “Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy” (Proverbs 28:13)

Even after we confess our sin before God, we may feel tempted to believe that’s not enough; that we’re not yet forgiven. I went through this, but don’t look back. God’s grace if a free gift and He gives it to us in love. Ephesians 5:8 says, “For at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light.”

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HAVE COURAGE: COME CLEAN WITH YOURSELF

Have you ever clarified things to yourself? Doing this helped me know what I was struggling to resolve so I could let it go.

If our role is unclear, we can find ways to justify parts or ignore parts of it. We can end up confessing in words but not in heart. And if our past wrongs are wrapped up in complex situations, we can get distracted with the roles other people played instead of focusing on the choice(s) we made.

Naming what we’ve done allows us to take responsibility for it and practice telling the truth. It brings it out of the dark and into the light. In the process we learn more about ourselves and the fact that we all make mistakes. We’re still worthy of love, and we have the unconditional love of God.

In his book The Journey, Billy Graham writes about a time King David tried to hide a sin he committed and how it affected him:

When King David refused to confess his adultery with Bathsheba and suppressed his feelings of guilt, he paid a price both spiritually and physically: ‘When I kept silent, my bones wasted away. . . . My strength was sapped’ (Psalm 32:3-4). Only when he faced his sin and sought God’s forgiveness did his health return. The Bible says, ‘A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones’ (Proverbs 12:22).

Keeping it inside is like pushing it down and locking it up in the dark of your heart or gut. It sits and festers and maybe grows. And it pains you as it grows.

Bring it out! Open the door and let in the light. It’s a warm light, a cleansing light, a healing light. And your Loving Father waits for you to invite Him inside that space. “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5).

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Coming Clean: Confessing and Healing the Past in Faith

Is there something you did in your past that still causes you to cringe, feel shame or guilt?

It’s the thing you’d rather not talk about it. Or maybe, you don’t want anyone to know.

And yet it comes up in your mind. Sometimes it keeps you awake at night.

Today you’re a new creation, but perhaps you still feel the residue of guilt lingering and can’t understand why.

Well, more people deal with the feeling of unresolved sin than you may think.

In my own life, when I used to think about the bad moves I made, the ones that troubled me the most, I found myself wanting to bury them. Hide them. It was better to push it from my mind, right? But there was still a feeling lingering; a feeling that something wasn’t resolved.

Deep down inside I wanted to be free of past mistakes. But how?

Bringing past sin to God—in confession—is a cleansing process. It helps us, by the grace of God, to have freedom from the past.

In a survey from Lifeway Research, 39% of the almost 3000 Christians polled say they confess daily; 27% said they confess several times per week. Keeping a clean slate is important and healthy in our walk with Christ and others.

But there’s something that happens when we take a deep-rooted misdeed that still conjures guilt or shame and bring that to the Lord; taking it out of the dark and into the light. For me, understanding God’s grace in such a personal way touched me forever.

Here’s how this could look for you:

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5) GROWTH IN THE REAL AND RAW

As the Tenth Avenue North song You are More says, we are more than the choices that we’ve made. We are more than the sum of our past mistakes… We’ve been remade.

When we make mistakes we remember that we are human. We are fallible. And we are still loved unconditionally by God. Our mistakes allow us to feel the rawness of life, for better or for worse, and participate in its unfolding.

Discovering how our past mistakes can help us today gives us a new perspective. We pick back up and continue on stronger. Philippians 4:13 says, “I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” And Luke 1:37 encourages us that all things are possible with God.

So the next time you notice less-than-desirable past memories floating through your mind, remember that nothing is wasted in your life. You can use that past choice in a surprising new way. How did it help you grow? What did it teach you? How have you changed?

Jeremiah 29:11 says, “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for good and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.”

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4) USE WHAT YOU’VE LEARNED

We’ve all made mistakes; in that we’re the same. But how we use what we’ve learned to help others is what sets us apart.

Many significant figures from the Bible had mighty failures and made terrible mistakes. Moses, for example, murdered an Egyptian. Abraham (then Abram) lied about his wife being his sister to protect himself. Peter denied Christ three times.

But as Keathley reminds us: “Though they failed at some point, and often in significant ways, they not only recovered from their failure, but they used it as a tool of growth—they learned from their failure, confessed it to God, and were often able to be used in even mightier ways.”

In God’s unconditional love and mercy, we are helped and healed. How can we empathize with, encourage and even help those going down some of the same roads we once walked? It says in 2 Corinthians 3-4, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.”

Many of us find our greatest purposes and calling in helping others avoid or survive the hurts, pains and pitfalls we once experienced.

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3) OPPORTUNITY TO CULTIVATE COMPASSION

When we’ve made a mistake, instead of digging in our heels and holding tight to our defense, we could look around openly at the whole playing field. Who else was involved? What was their potential experience?

If there were others involved in our past mistakes, we can seek to understand their feelings and perspectives. If we share in their experience (compassion is actually defined as “shared suffering”), we may feel a desire to help or change, and in the process our compassion for others grows. Our eyes are opened to what we couldn’t before see. Ephesians 4:32 says, “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.”

Psychologists continually learn the personal benefits of having a compassionate heart. Here are just a few:

  • Feeling less judgmental of others
  • Having more desire to help others in challenging situations
  • Experiencing less desire for acting in anger
  • Wanting a more peaceful atmosphere

Besides the personal benefits, compassion opens our mind and hearts to others and their experiences. We step out of a narrow existence and into the shared experience of the human race, made in the image and likeness of God.

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1) THE PERSON FORGIVEN MUCH LOVES MUCH

The experience of God’s grace is by far the best thing that can come from our worst mistakes. Realizing that we are loved unconditionally and forgiven unconditionally isn’t natural to us, but it is mind-blowing and life-changing to realize.

The Bible tells us how Jesus was invited to eat at the house of a Pharisee named Simon. A woman from that town who had lived a sinful life heard Jesus was there, so she came into the house and weeping at his feet, wet his feet with her tears, wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured expensive perfume on them. Simon was shocked; if Jesus were a holy man, why would he allow a sinner to touch him?

Jesus knew Simon’s heart and the heart of the woman and said to him:

Two people owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he forgave the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?”

Simon replied, “I suppose the one who had the bigger debt forgiven.”

And Jesus said, “You have judged correctly.” (Luke 7:41-43)

When we feel the heavy weight of our past mistakes and then realize the goodness and fullness of God’s forgiveness, we’re moved to an overwhelming thankfulness and love. In the story above, Jesus turned to Simon and said, “Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven–for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little, loves little.” Experiencing God’s grace opens our heart to a new kind of life– a life guided by the love of Jesus.

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5 Ways Past Mistakes Could Benefit Your Life Today

Maya Angelou once said, “Do the best you can until you know better. And when you know better, do better.”

As Christians we can take past troubles particularly hard, dragging them around in suitcases of embarrassment and shame, thinking no one would accept us if they only knew.

But what if you could use what you learned from past mistakes to improve yourself and even help others today?

You can.

In this post we’ll look at ideas for turning past mistakes into dazzling new positives. Because as Rick Warren once wrote, “We are products of our past, but we don’t have to be prisoners of it.”

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The Battle of Living by Faith

There’s a life that looks real. And pretty and safe. On paper. On screen.

And then there’s real life. The life that is behind all that. The one that has character and flaws and wonders. The one that’s still there.

It’s courageous to be real with people about your weaknesses. To see yourself exposed and walk in that feeling and to keep moving your feet. To keep your head up and your heart open. Because living by faith doesn’t mean every door opens or every person agrees. It can mean trusting God during periods of silence. Or seeking Him regardless of a culture that teaches He doesn’t matter.

To get rejected but keep trying.

To believe in Jesus when others laugh.

To feels so overwhelmed that you break.

To have made mighty mistakes but move on with integrity and hope.

Because living by faith means many things. It can mean feeling the burn of embarrassment on your cheeks while walking away from a fight. It can mean feeling confused and admitting it, relying on God to reveal truth and straighten paths in His time.

Feeling successful some weeks and like a shipwreck others.

And feeling just a little afraid that others will shake their heads silently and judge…

And right there is the fight. The battle of living by faith.

The battle we all know; the one that tells you to stay down. But you hear a voice whispering in your ear, “Get up and walk.”

You know it’s the right voice, but nothing in this world justifies it. You may lose if you get up and walk.

But you choose to do it. You decide at that moment to live. To rise to the occasion, to use the breath God put in your lungs to continue.

And suddenly you realize that being full of yourself isn’t really you at all. And you turn your head. Turn your eyes.

You ask the Lord.

More of you, Lord. Please. More of you.

And that’s when it all changes. Because suddenly you realize there’s much to do. There’s much to be in Him.

“I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20)

Because when we decide to live in faith things get messy. And beautiful.

And finally we know what it means to have beauty from ashes. Suddenly we realize that all the messed up crazy that was our past and at times can be our present is redeemed and bled for and paid for.

Thank  you Lord Jesus.

This time is too short. Let us live, really live, for you.

Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.” (James 1:12)

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That is true repentance in action.

Think about that regarding yourself and where you are today.   Have you done this yet?

The most significant moment in anyone’s life is when God begins to deal with you about repentance. But if you shrug your shoulders and say “well I’m not interested, maybe later”…there’s no guarantee that God will deal with you again,
or that you’ll get another tomorrow.

The most critical moment in anyone’s life is when God deals with your heart. When he says “Come back to me.  I’m willing to take you back.  I love you, I want you.”

One thing you can see throughout the bible that really makes God angry is despising God’s grace. He’s saying to you now: Come to me. Turn to me and let me help you.

If you’ve never known the forgiveness of God that is found through Jesus’s death on the cross and his resurrection, He invites you to come to Him and believe. He paid the ultimate price by laying down His life, as an atonement for your sins to be pardoned by God’s grace for whoever will put their trust in Him alone. Not Jesus plus other religions, or gods, idols, or sins.

But you’ve got to repent and ask Him in; trust what Jesus did on the cross for you (even if you don’t understand it all yet), and stop trying to be ‘good enough’ for God. You and I will never be good enough- if we could have then Jesus never would have needed to die for us.

If you’ve once known Jesus Christ as His son or daughter and you’ve backslidden (walked away from God into sin), come back to Him now. Don’t wait.  Repent of your wayward heart.

Either way, I hope you will take some time with Almighty God who is right there by your side now- waiting. Use your own words to repent- turn back to Him everyday for strength and relationship, and away from the life of sin.

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