Tag Archives: Confession

Daily Devotionals

Repentance and Forgiveness

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   Psalm 51, verse 17 says…             The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God,  You will not despise.                                                          

     This psalm tells us how to come to know the God of Heaven. In fact it gives the same message that we find in the New Testament….confession,  with forgiveness and cleansing following  (1 John 1:9). Sin comes between man and God, but when we openly confess what we have done,  God will freely forgive and give us a fresh new start. We need not feel embarrassed at our weakness (that is pride)….God already knows it, but we have to admit it and  follow Him once more.  

David was a king in Bible times who loved God very much. But even he wandered away from God’s ways, and committed the despicable murder  of an innocent man. He tried to cover one sin with another sin, but it didn’t work. So often we do a similar thing, only to find that our  fellowship with God is broken. We can either admit our sin quickly and openly to God, or remain in bitterness and misery , trying to tell ourselves that it didn’t really matter, and it was really the other person’s fault!             

      Do what David did, and then you will be able to say the following…. Have mercy on me O God my King, As to you now, my sin I bring; Wash me thoroughly, make me clean, Against You alone, my sin has been!                    

Life Lessons

Why do Bad things Happen to Good People? (Final Part)

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                                         Job’s Reaction.

     Job finally found his voice again… “O Lord, I know that You can do all things! I’ve listened to all these things that You can do, and I’m an utter fool! Please forgive me!” This is what the Lord delights to hear from each of His people, an utter dependence on Him….     It is only when we come to an end of ourselves that God can work for us! He will never despise or turn away from a broken and contrite heart (Psalm 34:18; 51:17). Now that Job had stopped justifying himself, he was in a position where God could work on, and for, him. But he first had to prove himself, that he had no more bitterness for his friends who at least had come to visit him in the time of trial!

    They were required to offer a sacrifice for their part in this whole affair, and Job had to pray for them when a natural reaction would be one of revenge. The whole matter was cleared up in the right way and with the right attitudes, and then God was able to bless Job to the fullest. All that he had lost was now restored to him…his health, his reputation and relationships, his wealth, and even another family that was as much joy to him as his first! His daughters were the most beautiful girls in the land!

   Before we leave the story of Job, let’s think for a moment about Mrs. Job. We tend to downgrade her for telling Job he might as well curse God and die. But she too had suffered loss in this ….she had lost her income, her wealth, her family….all were gone. Then there were those men that came and sat around saying nothing to comfort Job at all. No wonder she felt like she did!

    Would we be any different? Both she and Job must have been relatively young when all this happened, maybe in their mid thirties as they had another ten children. Before we condemn her for her hasty comment, let’s put ourselves in her shoes and imagine how we would have felt!

   It’s all in our attitude…towards God and those around us. We have to be right in both directions before God can fully bless us. We cannot be right towards God and be bitter against someone else at the same time. It doesn’t work! If we are bitter at all, we are NOT right before God. Bitterness is not becoming for a believer, no matter what the rights and wrongs are! That was the difference in the attitudes of Job and his wife. Job could say “though He slay me, yet will I praise Him!” while she said, “Curse Him and die!” What are our attitudes to our disappointments?

It wasn’t until Job was able to pray for his friends, that God was able to bless Him! This reminds us that we are told to pray for those who are mean to us, and for those who persecute us. We are not to hold any resentments or bad feelings toward ANYONE! If we do, we are to confess it as a sin, and then we know that God will forgive us, and cleanse us from this unrighteousness.    Then we are to act in a loving and friendly manner towards them, in obedience to God’s Word.                                                                                                      (Job 42:1-17)

Daily Devotionals

Thoughts from Psalm Ninety

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The Sheltering One

I know the wonders of God’s grace, Because I‘m in His secret place. A thousand years are in His sight, The same as yesterday’s quick flight; Man’s life is but a fleeting thing, Like blooms which fall or birds that sing. He sees the secret sins we do, And all the pride which dogs us too. We may see three score years and ten, Or even eighty, but what then? Teach us O Lord to watch our ways, As we are here with fleeting days; For You are all that satisfies, As we are here in time that flies; Let the beauty of Your grace, Reflect in deeds and in our face!

    We see here how fleeting each person is in the light of God’s eternity! Man is so insignificant in the light of what God is, and yet He desires for us to know Him and fellowship with Him! Our years here on earth are just the beginning of eternity for each one of us….an eternity spent in one of two places, either with God or without Him. We cannot imagine what it would be like to be separated from God and all that is good for ever and ever. If only the horror of it would impress itself on the minds of people, hell would be empty. Let’s each one of us learn to number our days as this psalm says, and apply our hearts to know wisdom, remembering that the fear and knowledge of God is the beginning of this wisdom!

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Morning Musings

Thoughts from Psalm Six

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The Weeping Man

O Lord don’t rebuke me for all my wrong, I’ve lost my joy, my peace and song, My soul is vexed, and my flesh feels raw, My eyes have wept until they are sore; God has heard my weeping and cries, As up to Him my prayers will rise.

    We all have times in our lives when we feel like David did when he wrote these words. We all do wrong things and know that we have displeased God (and often man as well). We have to confess our sin before we have fresh and free communion with God again, but it isn’t enough to just confess to God, we have to confess to those we have had the disagreement with as well. Otherwise bitter thoughts will continue to rankle and grow and our fellowship with others will be marred. It is wonderful to know that God knows all about us, and how we are feeling at any given time. So we might as well tell Him and receive His full and free forgiveness (1 John 1:9)

Life Lessons

Ruined!

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                                    Ruined!

We have just recently come back from a tour of the deep south of New Zealand that is full of beautiful pictures of lakes and mountains. One day we were sitting by a peaceful lake just soaking up the view. All was calm, and the reflections were just perfect. Then several ducks came swimming by and started squabbling in front of us.

Suddenly the perfect picture was broken into a thousand pieces by the actions of these birds, and it wasn’t until they had passed by that the reflections came back. It reminded me of how this is in our lives. We are told to be reflections of Jesus Christ in all His perfection, and perhaps we manage this for a time, but then we get upset over some little thing, and the reflection is broken to smithereens, and we behave in a very un-Christ-like manner.

But just as the reflection can come back to the lake, so we can pick up from where we left off, by confession and repentance. We are not to be worried that this happens because we are all human and God has made a provision for us, But it is an on-going thing, and is up to each one of us to put it into practice and not be discouraged.

Life Lessons, Uncategorized

How Well Do You Know God?

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   Well, how well DO you know God? Or perhaps we could ask it like this…how WELL do you know God? Then again, how well do I know God?   Finally ask, how well do I KNOW God?

   Each of these questions puts the emphasis on different words of the same question thus needing a different explicit answer to each one.

    Firstly, how well DO I know God? Do I know Him at all? Have I had any dealings with Him? We can’t really know a person until we’ve had some experience of interaction with them.     

   For instance, if I were asked “do you know Queen Elizabeth”, I might answer yes, I know who she is, but that is not actually KNOWING her. I have read much about her, and I know that she has been a great horsewoman, and that she has pet corgi dogs. I could reel off a whole host of other things about her that I have read. But none of that means that I really know the inner person that she is.

    This is the same with our knowledge of God…we might know a lot about Him, but unless we have experienced His forgiveness and subsequently His peace, we do not really know Him at all. Until we have been in the depths of despair and turned to Him for comfort and solace, we cannot know Him fully. We need to come to Him with a contrite heart for the wrongs we have done to experience His forgiveness, and then we can say we know Him well. (Psalm 51:17)

  We come to the next question…..how well do I know Him? This gets down to the personal pronoun, I. It indicates that He must know me as well, and in fact we are told that He does indeed know us from the inside to the outside whether we like it or not. I cannot hide anything from Him, and until I can say wholeheartedly, “Search me oh God, and know my heart today, Try me and know my thoughts and see if there be any wicked way in me” (Psalm 139:23-24) ” I do not really want Him to find me out!

   After having pondered on, and answered these questions honestly, then we can evaluate how well we really do know God. It will be dreadful in a coming day when God pronounces on different ones, “Depart from Me, I never knew you!” (Matthew 7:21-23) when many of them will have been engaged in doing what they thought was His work..

   If  God feels far away from you,  guess who moved? Well, you might ask, “How do I get near to God?”

It takes a contrite  heart and a confession of sin to start with but  then it takes time, after that.  Knowing God well will not come automatically, it takes time and effort. We need to ask ourselves how much time we put into this,  and to remember that if we draw near to God, He will draw near to us (James 4:8). When we take the first step towards Him, He will take ten towards us!

Let’s make sure that we do this today!!

Random Devotional Thoughts

How Much Does God Know?

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O LORD, You have searched me, and known me. You know when I sit down and when I get up again; You understand all my thoughts far and near; You surround me and know everything I do. For there is not a word I think and speak, but, lo, O LORD, You know it altogether.

The preacher was talking about these verses, saying how God’s knowledge far surpasses anything that people know. We don’t even know our own hearts. We know what we should be like, and we know what we would like to be like, but do we ever get there?

It’s like the story of a small town gossip who knew everything about everybody. One day there was a well known person in this small town who went before the local judge, with a large audience of the townspeople there to see what was going to happen. Mrs. Smith, the local gossip was there as well.

As they began the proceedings, one of the lawyers called out, “Mrs. Smith, you know everyone in this town, is the prosecuting lawyer an honest man?”

“I attended his birth Sir,” she replied, “and he’s the biggest whiner, right from the day he was born until now. He can’t be trusted as he gets even the worst offenders off. No, I wouldn’t say he’s an honest man!”

The other lawyer then asked, “Well, Mrs. Smith, can my opponent be believed in his accusations?”

“I wouldn’t trust him”, she said, “I’ve known him since I used to baby-sit him for his parents, and he took some watching I can tell you. He’s a real sneak!”

The judge leaned forwards and beckoned the two lawyers up to his bench. Leaning forwards he said in a hoarse whisper, “If either of you two ask her opinion of me, I’ll have you arrested for contempt of court!”

We may smile at this story, but it illustrates the futility of trying to hide anything from the Almighty God. We are also told in the Bible that one day we are going to stand before God as the Judge, and WE will give an account of ourselves and what we have done, to Him. No-one else will accuse us; we will accuse ourselves because we will see ourselves as He sees us  (Matthew 12:36-37). We needn’t think we can only say the good things we have done and said; every single mean and nasty thing we have said and thought will be dragged out of us. There is only one way to get out of this predicament, and that is to confess these things to the Lord NOW while we are still alive on this earth. He has promised that if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us of all unrighteousness, giving us a clean, fresh start once more. (1 John 1:9)

Then we can say with the psalmist, the last verses of this same psalm we started with, Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.  (Psalm 139:23-24)