It's Time For Change

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You know that feeling you get when God just won't let you ignore something, but you ignore it anyways?  You push aside the conviction and tell yourself "I'm not perfect" as if it's an excuse for why you keep on doing the very thing you don't want to do?  After all, you're only human and we all make mistakes. 

The truth is I am only deceiving myself, leading myself astray, and in effect walking away from the very light of His grace and mercy I claim to know and believe.  When I deny my sin, making excuses and ignoring that nagging conscience, I am reflecting dishonor upon God.  And, oh, that is conviction I cannot ignore any longer. 

Recently, this blog post kept showing up in my newsfeed during a week when I was already feeling completely overwhelmed and weary.  Every time it popped up, I found myself feeling both angry and nauseous at the same time.  I was already beating myself up about my daily failures and I thought, "Great!  Just what I need - another blog post reminding me how much of a failure I am!" 

But, at the same time, there was this nagging, sick feeling in my stomach that I needed to read these words, because I needed to stop sulking and moaning about my brokenness and do something about it. 

It is good to recognize my failures and imperfections, but it shouldn't end there.  It's no coincidence that as I wrestled with my conscience, I read these words from Matthew Henry's commentary on 1 John 1:8 (which I'm reading through with my Good Morning Girl's group):

"But God has given his testimony to the continued sin and sinfulness of the world, by providing a sufficient effectual sacrifice for sin, that will be needed in all ages, and to the continued sinfulness of believers themselves by requiring them continually to confess their sins, and apply themselves by faith to the blood of that sacrifice."

You see, His sacrifice was to cleanse us of all guilt for all sin, both the sins we've already committed and the sins we will continue to commit as long as we are walking in this body of sin filled flesh.  But, that doesn't mean we should just keep on sinning or making excuses for our daily failures and habitual faults.  

Charles Spurgeon says this:

"It is the pattern of our lives to be constant confessors, never denying our sin but always acknowledging our sin and always enjoying the ongoing benefits of that confession and that repentance.  In fact, we never come to the table of our Lord without the attitude of confession...without a heart searching to see if there's any sin in our lives that could cause us to literally bring chastening on us by partaking of this table without due consideration of the confession of our sins."  

All that to say: if I am to really walk in the light of His truth, I must both continually own my sins and repent of them, because if I don't I am dishonoring the One who gave everything for me.  

So, today, I'm confessing: I am a yeller.  I love my children with all my heart, but I too often allow anger to control my reactions and words.  I work hard to use my words to build up and encourage others, but at home?  I fall so far short, it's embarrassing.  

But today, I'm also repenting, laying this sin (because no matter how I try to sugar coat it - it is, plain and simply, sin) at His feet.  I'm bowing my knee before the One whose blood covers and washes all my sins and whose resurrection gives power to overcome, to change, and to be daily made new.  I am committing to make a change, to allow Him to sift and change, mend and mold, to make me more like Him and less like my pride-filled, dying self.  

And maybe it's time for me to finally read these words and join this challenge, because it's time for change.