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DISCLAIMER: maddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd
long entry!
Ya’ll know when
something convicts me or speaks to my heart, I just HAVE to share it w/ ya’ll
cuz thas how we brothers/sisters in Christ do! =) but yahh…this week was a
particularly difficult one for me because I had to confess something to someone
that I’ve been hiding for quite awhile now…it was a sin I committed awhile
back, and I’d dealt with it, stopped it, sought forgiveness from Christ w/ it,
and moved on…ALMOST…except for the fact that I never told this one person,
planning to do it maybe one day far in the future when I got bold enough or it
didn’t matter anymore…why? Cuz I was terrified about how they’d react to it,
terrified of being revealed as less than perfect, terrified at being judged,
terrified that once they saw this side of me, they’d no longer want to be in my
life…and honestly, I still don’t know what compelled me to tell that person,
other than to give credit to the Holy Spirit who convicted me and gave me the
strength to open my mouth and speak the words that were hardest for me to say…I
was fighting myself the entire time, but I got through it…and tho it was one of
the hardest things I’ve ever done, I can’t explain to you how liberating it
was…cuz that cloud of guilt has been lifted…that burden that was always hanging
there in the back is gone…I don’t have to carry that around for years, knowing
I’m gonna hurt this person one day in the future, always having that veil of
deceit betw/ us…I think I can better explain this with what I’m about to say…
Most of ya’ll
know I’ve been reading THE LIFE YOU’VE
ALWAYS WANTED (Spiritual Disciplines for Ordinary People)…btw, I’mma throw
in a shameless plug here…this is one of the most real, honest, practical books
I have ever read in my life and I think every Christian should read
it…seriously, you guys that are sitting around this summer with nothing to do,
PLEASE get this book…if you’ve always wanted to get more disciplined in your
walk w/ Christ, if you’ve been seeking transformation and wanting God to impact
EVERY aspect of your living, you need to get this book…get the expanded
edition, cuz it has an added chapter on prayer that is absolutely AMAZING…and
if u live in Houston or Waco, holler and you can borrow my copy =) k that’s
enough of my digression…back to the point…
I picked it up
this morning to read it and lo and behold, the chapter was on CONFESSION…it
addressed everything I’d been goin through this week EXACTLY (isn’t God’s
timing incredible?? God is a God of details, mann…never ceases to amaze me!)…so
I’mma share w/ you a lil bit of what John Ortberg was sayin…summarized and put
into Mabel language, of course…lol…
LIFE BEYOND REGRET – The Practice of
Confession
“Many Christians are unthinkably
horrified when a real sinner is suddenly discovered among the righteous. So we
remain alone with our sin, living in lies and hypocrisy…He who is alone with
his sins is utterly alone.” – Dietrich Bonhoeffer
I dunno about
ya’ll, but what I’ve found lately in my interaction w/ Christians is that
nobody really talks about sin anymore…we all know we’re doing it, but we’re so
busy perfecting our holy façade that we skim over the reality of our struggles…trust
me, I do this HARDCORE…itz something I’m fighting to break from… “Some of our
grandparents agonized over their sins. A man who lost his temper might wonder
whether he could still go to Holy Communion. A woman who for years envied her
more attractive and intelligent sister might worry that this sin threatened her
very salvation…” but today? Itz a completely different world…we sin, we feel
kinda bad, we get over it, n move on…but what we fail to realize is sin leaves
a serious stain…there is a consequence, an effect, something that’s more than
just our temporary guilt…we hurt those we sin against, and most importantly, we
hurt God…
So why confess?
For our healing…because no matter how many times we sing about God’s amazing
grace, that information isn’t enough for most ppl to grow in their experience of God’s liberating
forgiveness…itz not that we don’t understand the message, but we don’t know how
to live in the reality of it…
“This inability
to accept the reality of forgiveness is the reason that God has given us the
practice of confession. Sometimes people wonder, If I’m a Christian and God has already forgiven me, why should I have
to confess? This is looking at confession the wrong way.
Confession is
not primarily something God has us do because he needs it. God is not clutching
tightly to his mercy, as if we have to pry it from his fingers like a child’s
last cookie. We need to confess in order to heal and be changed.”
You see, most
of us see confession as just a means to hold us accountable…but itz more than
that…when we practice confession, first of all, we are liberated from
guilt…second of all, we are less likely to sin in the same way in the future
than if we had not confessed…sin will look and feel less attractive…I remember
when I was committing that certain sin and trying to get out, I KNEW it was
wrong, I would apologize and pray for forgiveness, but then I would go back and
do it again…cuz who was I accountable to? Myself…and um, if MYSELF is the one
struggling w/ temptation, how wise is it to be allowing MYSELF to hold MYSELF
accountable?? (k I doubt anyone has ever used MYSELF that many times in a
sentence!) it wasn’t until I confessed my sin to my best friend (I love you,
Tamara!) that I was able to stop doing it...
The book gives
a 6-step process for confession…
Preparation
“The first step is preparation. We begin
by placing ourselves into the care of the Spirit and asking for help. Apart
from this, confession is dangerous. If left to ourselves, we are prone to
self-condemnation for things we ought not to feel guilty about, or
alternatively prone to glossing over the truly ugly stains that demand
attention. We need help.”
The hardest
part of self-examination is knowing where exactly to place the mark…cuz
sometimes, itz really hard to recognize your own faults…so the first step is to
place ourselves under the protection of God, asking him to point you to the
right spot…
Self-Examination
This step is
prolly one of the hardest and most painful for me…cuz it entails taking time to
reflect on our thoughts, words, and deeds and acknowledging that we have
sinned…something the book emphasized is that we should be SPECIFIC, CONCRETE,
AND PARTICULAR… “One ‘I lied to my boss
and said I was working when I wasn’t because I wanted to avoid trouble’ can
bring about more honesty and change than twenty variations of ‘I haven’t been
truthful enough’.” How true is that??
“At the heart
of it, confession involves taking appropriate responsibility for what we have
done. This is not easy to do. We try to slip out of it. What starts as
confession often ends up an excuse: ‘I didn’t mean to yell at you; I was having
a bad day.”’ I guess the point is this – that when we truly confess, we own up
to the fact that our behavior wasn’t a result of a bad day, poor genes, other
ppl’s actions, or anything of the sort…yah, those factors may be involved… “But
confession means saying that somewhere in the mix was a choice, and the choice
was made by us, and it does not need to be excused, explained, or even
understood. The choice needs to be forgiven.”
Perception
We’ve all read
the verse, “Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice
the log in your own eye?” itz sooo true…one of the worst things about sin is
the denial that comes w/ it…it distorts our ability to even recognize itz
presence in our lives… “We can lie to avoid pain and hardly be aware we have
done so. We can flatter or seek to manipulate almost without even being aware
of it, as if functioning on autopilot. We can ignore injustice or human need
for long stretches of time without any moral warning lights going on.
So in this step
of confession, we ask for honest perception. We want to see our sins through a
new lens. We begin to see them through the eyes of the person we sinned
against. We struggle to see them through the eyes of God.”
Jesus warned
against this hardcore during his time on earth…He spoke so adamantly against
the Pharisees and spiritual leaders who used to pray so loudly thanking God
they weren’t like the other heathens, all the while failing to see the sin in
their own lives…we HAVE to see sin through new eyes – through the eyes of those
against whom we’ve sinned…only then will we fully begin to understand the
seriousness of our actions…
Two Questions: Why and What Happened?
“This question [of why] is critical
because sin is usually tied to some need or another. Indeed, sin is often the
attempt to meet a legitimate need in an illegitimate way. If we don’t address
that need in appropriate ways, we will go right on sinning.” This part is hard, too…because you have
to get to the point where you will admit to yourself that you were using sin to
fulfill a certain need – be it love, recognition, or the easy way out…and
that’s not always a fun thing to admit…but unless you recognize and acknowledge
your motives and intentions, there’s no way you’ll be able to stop yourself the
next time that same temptation attacks you…
The second
question – “What happened as a result of my sin?” I think this is the one that
helps me the most because when I look back and see this – see how far it took me
away from God, see the emotional pain I had to go through, see the pain I put
others through – that is the greatest motivation to keep me from doin that same
thing again…it isn’t enough to recognize the sin…cuz u’ll feel bad, but u’ll
return to doing it…but if u acknowledge the result of your actions HONESTLY, a
wonderful thing happens – you find yourself not wanting to do it ever again…
A New Feeling
“After
understanding comes a new way of feeling. True confession is not just an
exchange of information; it also involves entering into the pain of the person
we have hurt and entering into God’s pain over sin.” To learn to look at things
through God’s eyes is HARD…something I’ve prayed for before is the gift of
tears…I need my heart to hurt when I hurt God’s heart…I need to understand the
pain I cause both Him and others…
But something
we have to realize is that confession is an act of grace and can only be made
safely in the context of grace… “Feelings of remorse are no guarantee of
authentic repentance, and they can be highly destructive.”…how many times have
we felt horrible about something we did, n then gone and did it again? Feeling
bad isn’t enough…you get over that in a day or two…that’s why we have to pray
for this new attitude that forces us to enter into the pain we have caused
others…Godly sorrow is the fitting emotional response when we screw up… “It
leads us to seek restitution and reconciliation; it compels us to change and
grow; it leads us to grace.”
A New Promise
Confession is
not just naming what we have done in the past…it involves our intentions about
the future as well…it requires a kind of promise…as God does his work in us
through the process of confession, we will feel a deep desire not to do this
hurtful thing again…so we make a vow…we resolve that, w/ God’s help, we will
change…this will involve tryna set right what we did wrong, to the extent that
that is possible…
“The level of
our promise helps us to know whether we are actually repenting or just
attempting damage control. Is it our desire to set things right, or merely to
minimize painful consequences? Why should you expect anyone to take your
confession seriously unless you promise that you do not intend again to foul
your relationship w/ still more of the same unfair pain? You can give no
guarantee; the best of us go back on promises. But anyone who has been hurt
should expect a sincere intention, at least.”
The Summit: Healing Grace
This is not
just the idea of grace, but grace as a reality, being immersed in it, given
life by it…this is about freedom, the type of freedom that can only be found in
Christ…this means that you have to forgive yourself…this means that you can’t
beat yourself up daily about it…this means that you lay it at the feet of
Christ and MOVE ON… this means that you CAN get back up and continue living
because there is a God up there who loves you, who forgives you, and who is
more than willing to bestow His amazing grace…“The giving of the burden was an
act of grace. It caused pain and hardship, but it was grace all the same. The
release from the burden was an even greater act of grace. So it is with
confession.”
K my 50,000 pg
entry is over…and trust me, this was the VERY summarized version…the book is
50Xs better, SO GO READ IT…and do what it says…try this practice of
confession…no, not just to yourself in your bedroom, but to the ppl you’ve
actually hurt…I promise you, it’ll bring you a liberation in Christ that you
didn’t even know was possible…
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