I wonder who is going to go on tv and confess this week.
Confession isn't what it used to be. It isn't what the Bible says it is either. You see, the Bible defines confession as saying the same words as God will say about your sin. These words go something like, "I did it. No one made me do it. It was wrong. I hurt myself and my Lord when I did it." But this isn't the confession that is in vogue today, is it?
Today, confession goes something like, "I wanted to be so good that I did it. . . I was forced into doing so because of the pressures that were on me. . . I only did it because everyone else was doing it . . .Others made me do it!" Take your pick. All of these statements fail to identify the truly guilty person.
No, confession today says, "I can't help it." It doesn't matter how it is said but it is still said. Sin is eliminated because it couldn't be helped. "I was made that way . . . God wants me to be happy and this made me happy. . . It came from my upbringing, etc."
"Have a heart," people say to me. "You shouldn't judge others." I don't have to. I don't even determine what right and wrong is. God has already done that. I don't want to judge others. But does that mean I can't know when someone has done wrong? Should I say that I don't know if the guy who shot all those kids in Newtown did right or wrong? Should I say that I don't know if cheating on your spouse is right or wrong? How about robbing the bank or killing someone while driving intoxicated? Can't I know what is right and wrong?
The problem is age old. People have been trying to find some justification when they have done wrong for a very long time. You can't repent when you couldn't help yourself. You'll never get any better if you fail to admit your sins and resolve to do something about them.
So, tears will run down the cheeks of someone as they confess publicly this week.
Will everyone watching say, "O, they couldn't help it!"
Genesis 3:12-13 (ESV) 12 The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.”
13 Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
1 comment:
Yes, we, including me, do find it hard to come off some bad deeds, I mean sin; but Ps Prentis is right. We must know that when they are sins, they are sins, and wrong, in the eyes of God. Prentis is right, it is not we decide if they are right or wrong; God already stated so. Righteousness we must embrace, and that righteousness is not ours, but that of God. The righteousness of God is revealed in Scripture for all of us to know and to abide by. So, we do not need to make our own yardstick of what is right or wrong, the Word is our yardstick. One of the problems in this area, is that pastors, many of them (us, to include me, even though I am not really a pastor), do not research enough into the subject of judgment and explain it to their flock. It is common to hear believers saying, "no, no, don't judge", because there is such verse as "do not judge" in Scripture.
Ps Prentis already quoted the verses from Genesis; finding excuses for ourselves when we have sinned went all the way back to the Garden of Eden. So, first thing first, we must overcome the urge to come up with excuses, when we have sinned, before we can further embark on the journey of overcoming, and be victorious in our fight against sins.
God's will for all of us, is for us to be an overcomer (words to the 7 churches in Revelation), so, any "I can't help it" must be worked out of our dictionary, so to speak. All of us have some sort of Achilles' heel. Mine could be this, yours could be that; the point is that we have something we find it difficult to resist, but if it is wrong or sin, we have to work on it. It may take time, still we have to overcome it; and don't take offense against those who say it is wrong or sin, because they are not wrong. Ps Prentis is not wrong to point out a sin as a sin, not only because he is a pastor, for he is a believer, a brother. We do have a "brother's keeper" role, according to Scripture (Gen 4:9; Luk 17:3)
"i can't help it"? Heb 12:4 - In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.
Anthony Chia, high.expressions
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