“It happened in the spring of the year, at the time when kings go out to battle, that David sent Joab and his servants with him, an all Israel; and they destroyed the people of Ammon and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem.
“Then it happened one evening that David arose from his bed and walked on the roof of the king’s house. And from the roof he saw a woman bathing, and the woman was very beautiful to behold. So David sent and inquired about the woman. And someone said, ‘Is this not Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?’ Then David sent messengers, and took her; and she came to him, and he lay with her, for she was cleansed from her impurity; and she returned to her house. And the woman conceived; so she sent and told David, and said, ‘I am with child.’’’
. . .
“So David said to Nathan, ‘I have sinned against the Lord.’”
(2 Samuel 11:1–5; 12:13)
David’s sin involving Bathsheba was a progression of sins as so many of our sins are. Early sins were likely pride and self-satisfaction as he looked upon his accomplishments and basked in his own glory in Jerusalem. Next his basking turned to sloth and irresponsibility—in “the spring of the year, that time when kings go out to battle,” this king was at home in his leisure: idleness really is the devil’s workshop. His idleness turned to lust, his lust to theft and adultery, his adultery to deception and eventually murder. Had God not graciously stopped him in his tracks, his sin could have progressed to apostasy and self-destruction.
Just so, our sins can progress from bad to worse and to the unthinkable when they are not confessed, abhorred, and repented from. Confess sin quickly and thoroughly before your sins get the foothold they need to grow like weeds on a spring day. Nip sin in the bud through confession and genuine repentance. But just as with David, wherever you find yourself and your sin in that progression—at bud or full bloom—God stands ready not only to point the finger at your sin but to offer forgiveness, mercy, and the grace to do better, if we will come to Him freely, sincerely, and humbly, asking and looking for these things from His hand.
“Have mercy upon us, O God, according to Your lovingkindness; according to the multitude of Your tender mercies, blot out our transgressions. Wash us thoroughly from our iniquity, and cleanse us from our sin. Move us, dear God, by Your Holy Spirit to repent early and often, to know our sins and acknowledge them before they lead to yet other and more and worse sins. We give thanks to You, O Lord, for Your mercy towards us through our Lord Jesus Christ, for Your faithfulness to us, for the forgiveness of sins we have through Him; and we pray that mercy would continue throughout our lives and throughout all eternity; for Christ’s sake and in His name. Amen.”
Showing posts with label Confession. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Confession. Show all posts
Monday, June 27, 2011
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Holding the City Walls
“Whoever has no rule over his own spirit
Is like a city broken down, without walls.” (Proverbs 25:28)
We treat many of our sins in a passive sort of way, as things that simply “come over us,” as if there were nothing we could do about them. We “can’t help ourselves,” we say, whether it is a rush of anger, a “mood” of despondency or depression, falling into a passion of lust, or the avoidance of some duty through fear, indecision, or just plain laziness.
But the Bible knows better. We are to rule over our own spirits. We are little cities in microcosm, and our sins are our enemies. When we let our guard down, and especially when we do this on a habitual basis, the walls are breached, and our cities are occupied by our enemies, who continue to carry out their designs and govern our cities for us.
But we are not to let sin reign in our mortal bodies, in our little cities. (Romans 6:12) By God’s grace, we do have the ability to hold the walls: to control our temper, to walk away from temptation, to keep our tongues from evil, to face our fears, to rejoice always even when other “spirits” within us fight against us to the contrary.
God’s grace is the key, of course, and we begin to pray for the grace to obey by praying for God’s grace in mercy, forgiveness, and repentance. Confess your sins now before the Lord, asking Him to deliver you from them, as well as asking Him to fill you with a spirit of obedience and self-control.
“Lord God, we confess our utter inability in and of ourselves to keep ourselves from sin, and we confess our lack of diligence in holding the walls of our spirit by resisting the enemies of sin, temptation, and the devil. Forgive us, dear God, for our “letting our guard down” and for our allowing sin to get the upper hand, and grant us the grace to rule over our spirits consistently and persistently. We give You thanks for Your own Holy Spirit, who resides within us, and pray You would fill us with Him and the holy fruit of self-control He produces. Help us to set a guard over our tongues, to control our temper, and to do Your will and obey Your voice regardless our feelings or “spirit” to the contrary. Grant to us, dear Lord, merciful Father, true and lasting repentance, we pray in Christ’s name. Amen.”
Is like a city broken down, without walls.” (Proverbs 25:28)
We treat many of our sins in a passive sort of way, as things that simply “come over us,” as if there were nothing we could do about them. We “can’t help ourselves,” we say, whether it is a rush of anger, a “mood” of despondency or depression, falling into a passion of lust, or the avoidance of some duty through fear, indecision, or just plain laziness.
But the Bible knows better. We are to rule over our own spirits. We are little cities in microcosm, and our sins are our enemies. When we let our guard down, and especially when we do this on a habitual basis, the walls are breached, and our cities are occupied by our enemies, who continue to carry out their designs and govern our cities for us.
But we are not to let sin reign in our mortal bodies, in our little cities. (Romans 6:12) By God’s grace, we do have the ability to hold the walls: to control our temper, to walk away from temptation, to keep our tongues from evil, to face our fears, to rejoice always even when other “spirits” within us fight against us to the contrary.
God’s grace is the key, of course, and we begin to pray for the grace to obey by praying for God’s grace in mercy, forgiveness, and repentance. Confess your sins now before the Lord, asking Him to deliver you from them, as well as asking Him to fill you with a spirit of obedience and self-control.
“Lord God, we confess our utter inability in and of ourselves to keep ourselves from sin, and we confess our lack of diligence in holding the walls of our spirit by resisting the enemies of sin, temptation, and the devil. Forgive us, dear God, for our “letting our guard down” and for our allowing sin to get the upper hand, and grant us the grace to rule over our spirits consistently and persistently. We give You thanks for Your own Holy Spirit, who resides within us, and pray You would fill us with Him and the holy fruit of self-control He produces. Help us to set a guard over our tongues, to control our temper, and to do Your will and obey Your voice regardless our feelings or “spirit” to the contrary. Grant to us, dear Lord, merciful Father, true and lasting repentance, we pray in Christ’s name. Amen.”
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Good as God
“Now behold, one came and said to Him [Jesus], ‘Good Teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life?’
“So He said to him, ‘Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God. But if you want to enter life, keep the commandments.’. . .
“The young man said to Him, ‘All these things I have kept from my youth. What do I still lack?’
“Jesus said to him, ‘If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.’”
My six-year-old son Ian received a sucker this week in Sunday school. It was one of those specialty suckers—made entirely of sugar, of course, like all the rest—but this one not only was fashioned in the form of a snail, but you could eat the stick as well. He was thoroughly impressed, and I was too.
As we prepared to sit down to Sunday dinner, his mother investigated: “Now why again did you get this sucker?” I had not thought to ask this. I had thought it was merely a gift, but my wife knows many things I do not—she senses them, intuits them.
I think Ian had probably forgotten momentarily the why part of the equation as well. He seemed more interested in that he had gotten a sucker rather than why. Nonetheless, the truth was called forth from the now-ancient (three-hours-earlier) past.
“It was because I was good as God.”
I know he was not meaning to be blasphemous. Even I can intuit that much. Language is a really funny thing with six-year-olds. He says things like this all of the time—like, “Let me ‘tell’ you a question”—the grammar teacher has learned much patience. The theologian in me gets a little more anxious, however. Regardless his actual meaning, I was quick to the correction. “I am proud of you for being good, Ian—What? All of the other kids got suckers, too? Well, whatever the case, look—nobody is as good as God. But we are all supposed to be trying to be good like God. Maybe you mean to say you were being good ‘like’ God.”
Maybe. Who knows? And who knows what lessons of mine really sink in? Sometimes he soaks up a lot more than I give him credit for.
It is a lesson hard for grown-ups to grasp, not just six-year-olds. There are some people who act like they really do believe they are “as good as God.” Indeed they are like God in this way: they never apologize, never ask forgiveness, never even admit fault. Intellectually, they know “we are all just human” and “nobody’s perfect”; but, practically speaking, they function as the exception to the rule, having built up seemingly sturdy walls of defense against the reality of their own actual imperfections and uglinesses and sins.
Here is another problem, though. Because we all know we are not as good as God, and because we know good and well we ain’t never gonna be (see, I can let my grammar hair down), we tend to be altogether too lax about shooting for the goal—which is, guess what, to be as good as God. Jesus said to His disciples, “You shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.” The mark is set high, and, looking to God for grace, we are to jump with a sincere desire to reach it. Our desire should be to be as good as God, and our actions will always reflect our true desires. In fact, because of the Christian’s desire to be like Christ in all His ways, he is that much more inclined to admit and grieve over the so many ways he is not. He desires to be morally pure like God, and that desire drives him at the same time both to confess that he is not and to strive with all his might for that very goal.
“Good and Holy and Perfect Father, thank You for your goodness. Forgive us our sins, which are many, and forgive us for our pride in not admitting them. Help us to be good like You are good: help us to follow in the steps of our Lord Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen.”
“So He said to him, ‘Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God. But if you want to enter life, keep the commandments.’. . .
“The young man said to Him, ‘All these things I have kept from my youth. What do I still lack?’
“Jesus said to him, ‘If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.’”
(Matthew 19:16–21)
My six-year-old son Ian received a sucker this week in Sunday school. It was one of those specialty suckers—made entirely of sugar, of course, like all the rest—but this one not only was fashioned in the form of a snail, but you could eat the stick as well. He was thoroughly impressed, and I was too.
As we prepared to sit down to Sunday dinner, his mother investigated: “Now why again did you get this sucker?” I had not thought to ask this. I had thought it was merely a gift, but my wife knows many things I do not—she senses them, intuits them.
I think Ian had probably forgotten momentarily the why part of the equation as well. He seemed more interested in that he had gotten a sucker rather than why. Nonetheless, the truth was called forth from the now-ancient (three-hours-earlier) past.
“It was because I was good as God.”
I know he was not meaning to be blasphemous. Even I can intuit that much. Language is a really funny thing with six-year-olds. He says things like this all of the time—like, “Let me ‘tell’ you a question”—the grammar teacher has learned much patience. The theologian in me gets a little more anxious, however. Regardless his actual meaning, I was quick to the correction. “I am proud of you for being good, Ian—What? All of the other kids got suckers, too? Well, whatever the case, look—nobody is as good as God. But we are all supposed to be trying to be good like God. Maybe you mean to say you were being good ‘like’ God.”
Maybe. Who knows? And who knows what lessons of mine really sink in? Sometimes he soaks up a lot more than I give him credit for.
It is a lesson hard for grown-ups to grasp, not just six-year-olds. There are some people who act like they really do believe they are “as good as God.” Indeed they are like God in this way: they never apologize, never ask forgiveness, never even admit fault. Intellectually, they know “we are all just human” and “nobody’s perfect”; but, practically speaking, they function as the exception to the rule, having built up seemingly sturdy walls of defense against the reality of their own actual imperfections and uglinesses and sins.
Here is another problem, though. Because we all know we are not as good as God, and because we know good and well we ain’t never gonna be (see, I can let my grammar hair down), we tend to be altogether too lax about shooting for the goal—which is, guess what, to be as good as God. Jesus said to His disciples, “You shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.” The mark is set high, and, looking to God for grace, we are to jump with a sincere desire to reach it. Our desire should be to be as good as God, and our actions will always reflect our true desires. In fact, because of the Christian’s desire to be like Christ in all His ways, he is that much more inclined to admit and grieve over the so many ways he is not. He desires to be morally pure like God, and that desire drives him at the same time both to confess that he is not and to strive with all his might for that very goal.
“Good and Holy and Perfect Father, thank You for your goodness. Forgive us our sins, which are many, and forgive us for our pride in not admitting them. Help us to be good like You are good: help us to follow in the steps of our Lord Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen.”
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