Hello blessed child of God, I hope you’re fine by His grace.
I’m pretty fine thanks to God.
Today, I would love to share with you on one of my favourite verses in The Bible 1 John 1:9, but just to keep it all in context, we’ll take it as a block of verses in order to get it better.
1 John 1:6-10 NIV
If we claim to have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, His Son, purifies us from all sin. If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make Him out to be a liar and His word is not in us.
In these verses, I see two different mindsets, or if I can say so I see the example of two different people.
One sins against God but is ready to repent and confess their sins to God, while the other one refuses to admit that they sinned and instead choses to armwrestle with God and say they’ve not sinned.
This makes me think of King David Vs King Saul.
Saul’s Way Of Dealing With Sin: Justifying and Denying
King Saul was the first king of Israël. More than once, Saul made wrong choices because he didn’t depend on God (1 Samuel 13), nor rely on His instructions (1 Samuel 15). God would give him specific instructions but he would “twist them” at his own convenience, do what he wanted, and when he was confronted his first reaction was never to repent but to “justify his sin”. Saul preferred appearing as “right” instead of humbly admitting that he was wrong and God was right.
1 Samuel 15:1-3, 7-9, 11-23 NIV
Samuel said to Saul, “I am The one the Lord sent to anoint you king over his people Israel; so listen now to the message from the Lord . This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.’ ” Then Saul attacked the Amalekites all the way from Havilah to Shur, near the eastern border of Egypt. He took Agag king of the Amalekites alive, and all his people he totally destroyed with the sword. But Saul and the army spared Agag and the best of the sheep and cattle, the fat calves and lambs—everything that was good. These they were unwilling to destroy completely, but everything that was despised and weak they totally destroyed. “I regret that I have made Saul king, because he has turned away from me and has not carried out my instructions.” Samuel was angry, and he cried out to the Lord all that night. Early in the morning Samuel got up and went to meet Saul, but he was told, “Saul has gone to Carmel. There he has set up a monument in his own honor and has turned and gone on down to Gilgal.” When Samuel reached him, Saul said, “The Lord bless you! I have carried out the Lord ’s instructions.” But Samuel said, “What then is this bleating of sheep in my ears? What is this lowing of cattle that I hear?” Saul answered, “The soldiers brought them from the Amalekites; they spared the best of the sheep and cattle to sacrifice to the Lord your God, but we totally destroyed the rest.” “Enough!” Samuel said to Saul. “Let me tell you what the Lord said to me last night.” “Tell me,” Saul replied. Samuel said, “Although you were once small in your own eyes, did you not become the head of the tribes of Israel? The Lord anointed you king over Israel. And He sent you on a mission, saying, ‘Go and completely destroy those wicked people, the Amalekites; wage war against them until you have wiped them out.’ Why did you not obey the Lord ? Why did you pounce on the plunder and do evil in the eyes of the Lord ?” “But I did obey the Lord ,” Saul said. “I went on the mission the Lord assigned me. I completely destroyed the Amalekites and brought back Agag their king. The soldiers took sheep and cattle from the plunder, the best of what was devoted to God, in order to sacrifice them to the Lord your God at Gilgal.” But Samuel replied: “Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the Lord ? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams. For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance like the evil of idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord , he has rejected you as king.”
What is our reaction to sin? When we’re confronted with our own sins by God’s Holy Spirit or by godly people around us how do we react ?
- Do we blame “the soldiers” like Saul?
- Do we try to mask our sins by offering something to God in exchange?
- Do we try to twist God’s Word and convince Him and ourselves that we haven’t sinned against God and we obeyed Him totally?
Proverbs 30:20 NIV
“This is the way of an adulterous woman: She eats and wipes her mouth and says, ‘I’ve done nothing wrong.’
The danger with denying and/or justifying our sin, is that we’re implicitly saying that God is the liar and that we are right. When we become our own standard of righteousness, we’re bound to fail, and when we try to convince ourselves and God that we’ve done nothing wrong, we’re destroying our own souls.
Remember that God is generous with forgiveness. He is willing and ready to forgive us for free. The problem isn’t even our sins, since He dealt with them at The Cross when Jesus Christ poured His blood for all our sins. The issue is with us confessing our sins and receiving His forgiveness. If we say we haven’t sinned were denying The Word which clearly says that we’ve all sinned and fallen short of God’s glory.
No sin can be justified. If it’s been your habit to deal with your sins by justifying them, you’d better stop this because in God’s sight there is no excuse for sin.
Proverbs 6:30-31 CEV
We don’t put up with thieves, not even with one who steals for something to eat. And thieves who get caught must pay back seven times what was stolen and loseeverything.
However, He’s ready to forgive us if is we’re humble enough to admit that we’re wrong and we sinned against Him.
David’s Way Of Dealing With Sin : Confession And Repentance
King David was a man after God’s heart, but one day, in his idleness, he saw a woman bathing from afar and sent for her. He had sex with her though she was not his wife, and he had been told that she was married. At first, he tried everything he could to hide the consequence of his sin (the pregnancy which resulted from it), to the point of orchestrating the death of her husband.
When David was confronted by Nathan the prophet for what he did, this is how he didn’t react:
- he didn’t accuse the woman he slept with
- he didn’t accuse the people he sent to call for the woman
- he didn’t find any excuse for his sin, he didn’t try to justify it or minimise it
What he did was to repent before God. To “confess” here means to “Agree” with God. He agreed with God on the fact that he sinned, he messed up, he did what he should not have done, he went after his urges instead of obeying God like we so often do.
This example of repentance is so admirable.
2 Samuel 12:7-14 CEV
Then Nathan told David: You are that rich man! Now listen to what the Lord God of Israel says to you: “I chose you to be the king of Israel. I kept you safe from Saul and even gave you his house and his wives. I let you rule Israel and Judah, and if that had not been enough, I would have given you much more. Why did you disobey me and do such a horrible thing? You murdered Uriah the Hittite by letting the Ammonites kill him, so you could take his wife. “Because you wouldn’t obey me and took Uriah’s wife for yourself, your family will never live in peace. Someone from your own family will cause you a lot of trouble, and I will take your wives and give them to another man before your very eyes. He will go to bed with them while everyone looks on. What you did was in secret, but I will do this in the open for everyone in Israel to see.” David said, “I have disobeyed the Lord .” “Yes, you have!” Nathan answered. “You showed you didn’t care what the Lord wanted. He has forgiven you, and you won’t die. But your newborn son will.”
Psalms 51:1-14, 16-19 CEV
You are kind, God! Please have pity on me. You are always merciful! Please wipe away my sins. Wash me clean from all of my sin and guilt. I know about my sins, and I cannot forget the burden of my guilt. You are really the one I have sinned against; I have disobeyed You and have done wrong. So it is right and fair for you to correct and punish me. I have sinned and done wrong since the day I was born. But You want complete honesty, so teach me true wisdom. Wash me with hyssop until I am clean and whiter than snow. Let me be happy and joyful! You crushed my bones, now let them celebrate. Turn Your eyes from my sin and cover my guilt. Create pure thoughts in me and make me faithful again. Don’t chase me away from You or take your Holy Spirit away from me. Make me as happy as You did when You saved me; make me want to obey! I will teach sinners your Law, and they will return to you. Keep me from any deadly sin. Only You can save me! Then I will shout and sing about your power to save. Offerings and sacrifices are not what You want. The way to please You is to be truly sorry deep in our hearts. This is the kind of sacrifice You won’t refuse. Please be willing, Lord, to help the city of Zion and to rebuild its walls. Then You will be pleased with the proper sacrifices, and we will offer bulls on Your altar once again.
God already knows all of our sins, even those which we haven’t committed yet. Before He chose David, He knew he would do that, and before Jesus Christ died on The Cross for your sins, He knew all the sins you would commit.
Don’t think that by denying your sins, you are protecting yourself by asking God’s forgiveness just to be rejected by Him.
It’s impossible that God rejects a sinner who repents sincerely. Don’t believe the devil who asks you to find excuses for your sins, or who convinces you that the way to fight shame is to deny sin.
God already knows what you did, but when He sends His Holy Spirit to make you realize your sins like He sent Nathan to open David’s eyes, it was not to condemn him but to restore him, and it’s not to condemn you but to restore you.
God wants to restore you, God wants to forgive you, God wants to purify you from all the sins you commited but He can’t do it without you first admitting that you commited them.
The first step to healing is recognising that we’re sick and accepting to meet a qualified person to take care of our issue.
God is ready to forgive you right now. He’s the Qualified Person for this.
Will you confess your sins to Him?
Prayer
Father Lord God Almighty, I confess there have been times when I sinned but didn’t want to admit to myself or others that I was wrong. I justified my wrong behaviour, found excuses, denied my sin, so as not to confess it to you, and so as to nullify my conscience and wipe the shame for my sins. I realize today that I was wrong and proud, and that I was hurting myself for nothing because You already know all those sins and You are more than willing and able to forgive me and cleanse me completely from those sins and the guilt and shame associated with them. I confess them to you today and I receive your forgiveness freely and joyfully. Thank You Lord in Jesus Christ’s Name. Amen.
It’s Now Your Turn
How do you deal with your own sins? Please answer in the comments section.
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Thank you so much for reading
God bless you
Victoria Eyog
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