Daily devotion – confessing with sincerity
Eze 36:31 “Then you will remember your evil ways and your deeds that were not good; and you will loathe yourselves in your own sight, for your iniquities and your abominations.”
Confessing our sins before God and being repentant is not something we do once at the time of our salvation. As believers, we continue to slip up, fail, stumble and thus we too need to daily seek the Lord for His forgiveness and mercy as John reminds us – 1Jo 1:9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
There is a difference between merely admitting sin and confessing sin. When we have confessed our sins sincerely to the Lord, we despise them greatly and forsake them; even their memory upsets us – as our opening text said in Ezekiel 36:31 and further in Ezekiel 6:9 “Then those of you who escape will remember Me among the nations where they are carried captive, because I was crushed by their adulterous heart which has departed from Me, and by their eyes which play the harlot after their idols; …….they will loathe themselves for the evils which they committed in all their abominations.”
If the memory of your sin is pleasant to you and you enjoy ‘tasting it’ from time to time – Psa 10:7 “His mouth is full of cursing and deceit and oppression; Under his tongue is trouble and iniquity.” – then you have not really confessed it to the Lord.
A false confession is worse than no confession at all.
Let us always see that nothing separates us from God. Let us confess and ask God’s help that we might not sin in this way again. To keep us away from such things.
When Jesus taught us how to pray remember His words, Luk 11:4 “And forgive us our sins, For we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us. And do not lead us into temptation, But deliver us from the evil one.”
This is a beautiful way to live and it is also a peaceful one!
Maybe today, there is something you need to bring to the Lord and ask Him to cleanse you from. Remember He is always ready to forgive a broken and contrite spirit. Come to the Father today and be set free from those things that trouble you that you may walk before Him in the Light of His grace and mercy.