Sunday, August 10, 2008

This Plus This Equals This

Ahhh, it's good to be home. You can hop over to my personal blog to see some of the pics from my weekend at the lake! We had a great time. I thought of you while I was there and prayed for you while looking at the water and the beauty of His creation.

We'll continue our look at what it means to walk with Jesus. I don't have this whole thing figured out, but what I do have I love to share with you. Thank you so much for continuing to come back.

Last week we started talking about the Quiet Time with little variety of what it is and isn't. If you haven't read those posts, scroll down and read those first.

We ended last week with remembering that it's aaalll about humility when it comes to knowing, loving and being changed by Christ. I have learned there is no other way to find real peace with Him. Humility to His love, authority, character, grace, mercy and even His joy, is the way to find all those things in your own life. But, I'll not keep going, just read the last one. :)

Today I want to focus on two great things about living a daily life/relationship with Christ.

Here's what we'll be looking at:

The power and freedom in confession and the transformation that comes from it.

Dum. Dum. Dum...CONFESSION! Did I say freedom comes from it? You betcha.

Now, I know it can be easy to say, "Dear Lord, please forgive me of my sin...thanks." But, do you take the time to say something like, "Father, I know that I can be a hot head, envious, jealous, easily angered, lazy..."? Do you ever take the time to really take inventory of any possible sins? Is there anything you walk in too often that could even be considered a habitual sin?

Sometimes I feel like things between the Lord and I are, for lack of a better term, clogged up. Like I can't hear Him or feel Him. The first thing I do is search my heart for any unconfessed sin. I do that too if I am going to be talking to Him about something very heavy on me or very serious. I'm not saying that Jesus and I don't talk when I'm sinning. No, then we'd never get a chance to talk.

I'm simply saying that sometimes I know I put God at arms length because I'm too wrapped up in something to really be able to hear His voice or have His Spirit fill me up completely.

Check out how David felt when he held sin in:

When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long....Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, "I will confess my transgressions to the Lord and you forgave the guilt of my sin. Psalm 32:3, 5

It's not always some deep dark sin that we need to confess. Sometimes it is. But it can be the every day rebellion against the things of God that get us tripped up.

Confession is agreeing with Him that we have sinned against Him and through it we make room for the Holy Spirit to be filled in us to the fullest leading to transformation.

Therefore , I urge you, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God - this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is - his good, pleasing and perfect will. Romans 12:1-2

This renewal through confession, recognition of who we are in light of Him, and letting his Holy Spirit renew us will bring about an understanding of His will. Confession empties your spirit of it's ugly contents and exchanges it for the truth and holiness of God found through His Word and emblazoned upon by His Spirit.

Again, this comes through humility. I cannot stress enough in type how much freedom there is when you humble yourself and make confession. It might not be every day, but you might find how refreshing it is on a regular basis.

The whole "knowing the will of God?" thing, well, that's tomorrow's subject.

Confession + Humility = Freedom and Transformation

God Math. The only Math that's fun.

3 comments:

Jesi said...

Glad you are back and had a fun weekend! I was looking forward to this...it's funny how we try and keep those sins silent when as Christians we "know" that He already knows every secret of our heart...but there is something to be said for confessing those sins out loud. I have found a lot of freedom in praying out loud to Him.
Thanks for making Monday better!~
Jesi

Tammy said...

Loved the pictures from the lake. Glad you had a great time. This is great post. I find I am not on my knees nearly enough about ths very thing. This is something that I need to change so I can have that freedom.

Anonymous said...

OK...I think God may be trying to tell me something. The sermon at church Sunday was about this very thing, and used David as the reference. From the time of David's original sin with Bathsheba until he was confronted by Nathan and he confessed was about a year. Another Psalm he wrote during this year was 51. In 2nd Samuael 12:13 David confesses and the very next verse Nathan tells him of God's forgiveness. There will still consequences of his sin, but God's grace and redemption was manifested by the birth of Solomon (whose name in Hebrew is Shalom or peace). I think there are things that sometimes take up a dwelling place in our hearts that we don't even want to recognize as sin...we justify certain things. I think I will have to spend some time seeking the "innocent", secret sins that have become like plexiglass in my soul. What am I holding on to? What am I thinking is justified? What is grinding my bones and keeping me from living in the joy of communing with God? Sorry for the long comment, I'm pretty hard headed, but when I get a similar message within days of one another I'm thinking there may be a reason. Thanks for the post!
Sondie