In the Shadow of the Cross

Sin is the barrier between us and our God. Our sin keeps us from God, from fully enjoying Him. It separates us from our Father and Creator.
Sin is inevitable because we are sinners. We were born with a sinful nature. Yes, but one may tell oneself that - well, my sins are not as great as a hardened criminal or a perpetual trouble-maker. Yes, but we are all sinners nonetheless.

“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 has no place in our lives”.
(1 John 1: 8-10 NIV )

So what can we do? John tells us what we are to do. When we sin as a child of God, we are to confess, immediately. Confession, is that all we need to do? No, with that comes an overwhelming desire to be obedient to God with heart-felt, sincere contrition. Confession, while it is necessary to be immediate, it also requires a life changing perspective and reality. It is a change of life –thoroughly with the acceptance of Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. Sin is the large gap between us and God, and Jesus' death and fills that gap. {Take this free gift given from God, accept Jesus for all that He is.} Confession is empty and futile unless it is combined with the belief, the surrender and the submission of one's life fully and completely to Christ. A true confession of sin presupposes that one hates the sin they have committed, but because of their humanness they failed, their sinful nature won over their desire for righteousness. Contrite confession coming from a person who truly desires to be obedient and act to please God is a confession that will activate purification from all unrighteousness.

But as the Holy Spirit speaks through the apostle John, “God is light; in Him there is no darkness. If we claim to have fellowship with Him yet we live in darkness, we lie and do not live in the truth”
(1 John 1:5-6 NIV)

Living in darkness, means one is living without God. Living without God makes one's confession empty and without substance.

“Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness. But you know that He appeared to that He might take away our sins. And in Him is no sin. No one who lives in Him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen Him or known Him”
(1 John 3: 4-6 NIV)

However, once we surrender totally and completely to Christ and desire to have a relationship with Him, and believe Him to be our Lord and Savior, He gives us a tremendous promise. It is huge and it is said with one small word…. I will quote it. See if you can find this key word.

“If we confess our sins He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us in all unrighteousness”
(1 John 1:9 NIV)

Did you find the one incredible powerful word in that promise? It is word “all”. He will purify us from all unrighteousness. This passage doesn't say “some” or a “few” or a “percentage of”, rather it says “all” unrighteousness. Isn't that wonderful?
Confession is very powerful. It wipes the slate clean.

His purification comes from His power, for His faithfulness and His justice. It comes from His saving grace. Our God is an awesome God. This one small word is such a powerful, comforting and joy-giving word. What a promise! That promise carriers with it a reciprocal idea. Should we continue in sin? In other words, should we continue to be under sin's power, should it be our default posture? Knowing that we can come to God confess our sins, and then all is right with the sin nature as our primary nature? For example, one sins, one confesses, one sins then one confesses. The sin is almost anticipated along with the confession, it is committed with the notion that the confession in and of itself can justify the sin, or ease the sting of the sin as it is preconceived. If that is your plan, I question first of all if you a child of God and living in the light at all, or were you simply living in darkness playing a cerebral game with God. You can't win. Living in fellowship with God demands that we live in obedience, living to please God and submit to His omnipotence and Lordship over our lives. This is living in the light, and this forgiving promise is for those living in Him.

Confession is wonderful, and extremely valuable for the true Christian. The non-believer can benefit as well, and even more so with it is coupled with a new understanding, a new life as a full submission to God and to our Lord Jesus as Savior and Lord over their lives.

“ So I tell you this and insist on it in the Lord. That you must no longer live lives as Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking, they are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lose all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality, so as to indulge in every kind of impurity with continual lust for more”
(Ephesians 4: 17-19 NIV)

Sin is inevitable and part of everyone's life. It is how we deal with it and how we hate it that sets us apart from those in darkness. Paul in 1 Corinthians 2 tells us that when we really confess our sins we are to be sorrowful, deeply sorrowful for that sin. “Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.” Our sins should grieve us to the marrow of our bones.
A true confession of sin brings a longing to be God-centered, to be Christ-focused and to reject the world and its enticements, to hate sin and to love God more than your sin. To confess with the realization that this sin is ugly in the sight of a holy God. But that God with His overwhelming resources of mercy and grace can cleanse us fully and restore our relationship with Him.

Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All Rights Reserved.

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