Something Completely Different—Part 2

I was watching the snow fall this past Sunday morning, and it got me to thinking about the passage of Scripture that tells us “though your sins are like scarlet, I will make them as white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, I will make them as white as wool.” (Isaiah 1:18—NLT)

Yesterday we talked about praying for people who pop into your mind. Today I want to tell you about a practice that I try and do at least once a day, and most of the time at the end of the day or even throughout the day. It is the practice of repentance.

What I try and do is find a moment or two where there is nothing pressing on my time. No phones to answer, no kids to watch, no sermon to write, no letter to mail, no book to read, no TV to watch, no nothing. I just get alone and I pray this very simple prayer. It goes like this:

“Lord, please reveal to me anything in my life
that is offensive to You. Bring it to my mind that
I may confess it and repent.”

Then I wait. I allow my mind to think back through my day, afternoon, morning, whatever, and think about those things that I have done, said, thought or even considered that might have been offensive to God. If there is nothing, I say “Praise God!” and go about my day. But when there is something (and more often than not there is), I move on with my confession.

Confession of sin is simply agreeing with God that what I have done is offensive to Him. It is stating that I have sinned, and I need to be forgiven. I confess my sins to God because that is what I am commanded to do (1 John 1:9—“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us…”).

Once I have confessed and received God’s forgiveness, I then need to continue on toward repentance. Repentance is turning from those things I have done that offend God and moving toward Him. Obviously, this assumes I know His Word and His will for my life, so that I can move in the right direction. But I must fill the void of sin with holiness.

Jesus put it this way in Matthew 12:43-45:

“When an evil spirit leaves a person, it goes into the desert, seeking rest but finding none. Then it says, ‘I will return to the person I came from.’ So it returns and finds its former home empty, swept, and in order. Then the spirit finds seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they all enter the person and live there. And so that person is worse off than before.” (Emphasis added)

Notice that this “evil spirit” left the person for a time, but when it came back, there was nothing there to replace it. I think that Jesus is telling us that when we seek forgiveness through confession of sin, we are truly cleansed. That’s the promise of God in 1 John 1:9. But the problem is that we don’t replace that sin with something holy. So repentance is replacing the sin in our lives with something else that is holy and righteous.

Now please don’t misunderstand. I am not saying that the things that we replace our sin with must necessarily be spiritual things. They could be things like hobbies, crafts, etc. that are wholesome and bring us a connection to God. If you noticed in the discourse that Jesus was giving to His disciples in Matthew 12, the life of the person was empty, leaving room for the evil spirit (or what I might call “besetting sin” or “habitual sin”) to come back.

So when you do this, ask God to show you your failures, confess them, then repent of them and fill that void with something that will honor God in your life.

If you do that every day (or even multiple times a day), you’ll find that your “sin accounts” with God will be kept very short…and joy will fill your life!

Have a great Tuesday, and we’ll see you on Sunday!