“If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us” (1 John 1:10).
Not long ago I had an epiphany regarding this verse of Scripture. In the Greek, confession means, “To say the same thing as another.” When I confess my sins to God, I agree with him that what he calls sin really is sin. When we add a, but after a confession, we negate everything that went before. “Yes, I realize I shouldn’t have said that or done that, but it was because …” A simple, “I’m sorry, I was wrong,” is so much harder. It’s much easier to admit to something if you offer an explanation. In it, I say, “A confession with an explanation is no confession at all.” In my book, Seven Words You Never Want to Hear, I have a chapter called Confession. Before starting a new day, I confessed to my husband that the words I had spoken the night before were uncalled for. I knew I was wrong the Holy Spirit had given me a nudge. “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen” (Eph. Some translations replace the word complaining with grumbling. “Do all things without complaining or arguments” (Phil. More importantly, I failed the test found in Scripture. What I told Brad certainly passed the first part of the test it was true. “Is it true, is it kind, is it necessary?” I was complaining about someone to my husband, Brad, the night before and knew that my actions couldn’t pass the test given to me by my mother as a child.
0 kommentar(er)
