I have a hero in the faith - her name is Corrie Ten Boom. I read her book, Tramp for the Lord, in high school the first time....and many times since. I picked it up today when I wanted a fresh look at a life lived for the Lord in the area of forgiveness.
What amazes me when I pick this book up each time, is just how much God is up to all over the world. We see something new in the faith or sense Him doing something in our midst, and I'm reminded that He has been moving mightily all over the world since time began.
David talks a lot about the message of James 5:13 - confessing our sins one to another so we can be healed. It's the message of horizontal confession and forgiveness. God forgives...but we may miss the healing if we do not confess our sins to someone in the faith and release that accountability.
Corrie talks about the broken circle. She shares a story about her nephew praying and praying for something to break free in a friends' life. It just never would. The Lord spoke to her nephew about 1 John 1:7-9 and gave him this leading: If Christians walk in the light, then the blood of Christ cleanses them from all sin, making their life a closed circle and protecting them from evil. But if there is unconfessed sin in that Christian's life, the circle has a gap - a hole, if you will, where evil can more easily entangle us. Her nephew finally asked the friend about any unconfessed sin. When that sin was confessed - liberation came.
The message of James 5:13 has been going on a long time. Open confession. Open forgiveness. Then healing comes. God's Word has been working in the lives of people since He created the world. His message is the same - and it works. Now that we would learn to live in that realm of constant confession - and openness before the Lord and those in the faith we trust.
Help us, Lord, to confess what has been unspoken. Help us to forgive what has been weighing us down. For where your Spirit leads us, there is freedom.
1 comment:
Ginger,
Confession, even it it is not an easy thing to do since most of us are trying to hide our sins. Will set us onto the path of healing. If we can just tell someone what it is that we are hiding. Afraid to get it out into the light. We can them see that maybe it is not as bad as we thought. We can see that Jesus already knows about what it is and has already taken it. He has forgotten it and tossed it into the sea. It is us that holds onto it and keeps it stuffed into the dark crevices where it can be used against us by Satan.
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