Romans 7:15 "For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate."
When God told us in 1 John 1:9 to confess our sins, He was speaking to born again believers. Believers do sin, if they thought they don't then they have sinned by thinking that.
Christ's blood covers our sin, in our flesh we still possess the fallen nature. The Lord continues to cleanse us throughout our life as He works on us.
1 Corinthians 3:15 "If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire."
Every believer will be judged for the purpose of rewards, but not for salvation.
Ephesians 1:13-14 tells us that we are sealed when we become born again, never to be lost again. If we do not confess our sin, we do not grow in holiness, if we do confess our sin, we will grow and have reward in heaven.
Ephesians 1:13-14 "13 In [a]Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation—having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, 14 who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory."
Ephesians 2:10 "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them."
We confess and He does the cleansing.
Written to believers;
1 John 1:8 "If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us."
Believer do not want to sin, if they are not sinning in their own effort, then they are prideful and have the sin of pride. We are to confess our sin, ask for cleansing and then Christ will do it.
1 John 1:9 "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."
We confess and He does the cleansing! Anyone who thinks they are cleansing themselves by their outer deeds are walking in pride. The cleansing Christ does is in our hearts changes our deeds. If our heart is right, our deeds will be right. The heart condition needs to be fixed before the outer condition can be real. When we sin, even in little ways, we know God has more work to do on us and that work continues until we die.
So many people attempt to walk rightly without a change of heart, all it does is cause them to appear holy without being holy. When something is only in appearance, it has little value and will digress from whence it came.
When we see people who claim to love the Lord, return to their vomit, without conscience, fully immersed in their sin loving every minute of it, we have probably witnessed someone who was pretending, as a good actor or actress playing a role. Since it was not real in the first place, having been deeply a part of their inner spirit, it could not sustain itself.
If we are born again and sin, God will nag us until we repent, if we continue to refuse to listen, He will ignore us, our prayers will not be heard while we continue the downward slide toward the consequences of our own sin. God will not bless a stubborn heart.
John 9:33 ""We know that God does not hear sinners; but if anyone is God-fearing and does His will, He hears him."
Proverbs 1:28 ""Then they will call on me, but I will not answer; They will seek me diligently but they will not find me,"
I have used this myself with my children when they were younger, to refrain from blessings them when they refused to be obedient. They were still my children, but the fellowship was broken and so were the blessings.
Confession had to occur to fix all that. Without confession there would not be a change in behavior and the bitterness and anger in their hearts would grow as they continued to reject my authority.
The longer we choose not to confess, the harder our hearts become. Stubbornness is like a cancer, it grows when not dealt with. After being deeply entrenched in bitterness and anger, the soul becomes sickly and often does the body.
Psalm 66:18 "If I regard wickedness in my heart, The Lord will not hear;"
1 Corinthians 11:30 "For this reason many among you are weak and sick, and a number sleep."
Bitterness, anger and rebellion actually ages the body. Not all illness is because of sin, however much is, each one has to pray and ask the Lord if they are ill because of their sin or is this just a training period to lean on the Lord more.
In the case of Job, we know he had lessons to learn even though he was a righteous man who had not sinned. Others were tested to expose their sin that they might repent.
Psalm 107:17 "Fools because of their transgression, and because of their iniquities, are afflicted."
The soul and the body are deeply connected, that's why we can use the skill of "lie spotting" to detect lying. Facial muscles do certain things when we are lying, even if we don't know our body is doing it, a person's heart is revealed often in body language. Our bodies react to what is happening in our soul, we cannot stop it, only the discerning notices it.
There are times when we sense something is not right, but we can't prove it, so we let it go until we see more blatant evidence. There is a speaker I am having serious reservations about, who claims to be a former terrorist who became a Christian. I won't name him because I have no proof, warning signals are surfacing that make me reluctant to use any of his videos. I may have a time or two in the past but will not any more.
The key to all of this is to continually pray for discernment about ourselves and others to come to a knowledge of the truth. We cannot confess if we don't see the truth and we can't warn others of false teachers if we are fooled by their messages.
1 Thessalonians 5:21 "But examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good;"
When God told us in 1 John 1:9 to confess our sins, He was speaking to born again believers. Believers do sin, if they thought they don't then they have sinned by thinking that.
Christ's blood covers our sin, in our flesh we still possess the fallen nature. The Lord continues to cleanse us throughout our life as He works on us.
1 Corinthians 3:15 "If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire."
Every believer will be judged for the purpose of rewards, but not for salvation.
Ephesians 1:13-14 tells us that we are sealed when we become born again, never to be lost again. If we do not confess our sin, we do not grow in holiness, if we do confess our sin, we will grow and have reward in heaven.
Ephesians 1:13-14 "13 In [a]Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation—having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, 14 who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory."
Ephesians 2:10 "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them."
We confess and He does the cleansing.
Written to believers;
1 John 1:8 "If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us."
Believer do not want to sin, if they are not sinning in their own effort, then they are prideful and have the sin of pride. We are to confess our sin, ask for cleansing and then Christ will do it.
1 John 1:9 "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."
We confess and He does the cleansing! Anyone who thinks they are cleansing themselves by their outer deeds are walking in pride. The cleansing Christ does is in our hearts changes our deeds. If our heart is right, our deeds will be right. The heart condition needs to be fixed before the outer condition can be real. When we sin, even in little ways, we know God has more work to do on us and that work continues until we die.
So many people attempt to walk rightly without a change of heart, all it does is cause them to appear holy without being holy. When something is only in appearance, it has little value and will digress from whence it came.
When we see people who claim to love the Lord, return to their vomit, without conscience, fully immersed in their sin loving every minute of it, we have probably witnessed someone who was pretending, as a good actor or actress playing a role. Since it was not real in the first place, having been deeply a part of their inner spirit, it could not sustain itself.
If we are born again and sin, God will nag us until we repent, if we continue to refuse to listen, He will ignore us, our prayers will not be heard while we continue the downward slide toward the consequences of our own sin. God will not bless a stubborn heart.
John 9:33 ""We know that God does not hear sinners; but if anyone is God-fearing and does His will, He hears him."
Proverbs 1:28 ""Then they will call on me, but I will not answer; They will seek me diligently but they will not find me,"
I have used this myself with my children when they were younger, to refrain from blessings them when they refused to be obedient. They were still my children, but the fellowship was broken and so were the blessings.
Confession had to occur to fix all that. Without confession there would not be a change in behavior and the bitterness and anger in their hearts would grow as they continued to reject my authority.
The longer we choose not to confess, the harder our hearts become. Stubbornness is like a cancer, it grows when not dealt with. After being deeply entrenched in bitterness and anger, the soul becomes sickly and often does the body.
Psalm 66:18 "If I regard wickedness in my heart, The Lord will not hear;"
1 Corinthians 11:30 "For this reason many among you are weak and sick, and a number sleep."
Bitterness, anger and rebellion actually ages the body. Not all illness is because of sin, however much is, each one has to pray and ask the Lord if they are ill because of their sin or is this just a training period to lean on the Lord more.
In the case of Job, we know he had lessons to learn even though he was a righteous man who had not sinned. Others were tested to expose their sin that they might repent.
Psalm 107:17 "Fools because of their transgression, and because of their iniquities, are afflicted."
The soul and the body are deeply connected, that's why we can use the skill of "lie spotting" to detect lying. Facial muscles do certain things when we are lying, even if we don't know our body is doing it, a person's heart is revealed often in body language. Our bodies react to what is happening in our soul, we cannot stop it, only the discerning notices it.
There are times when we sense something is not right, but we can't prove it, so we let it go until we see more blatant evidence. There is a speaker I am having serious reservations about, who claims to be a former terrorist who became a Christian. I won't name him because I have no proof, warning signals are surfacing that make me reluctant to use any of his videos. I may have a time or two in the past but will not any more.
The key to all of this is to continually pray for discernment about ourselves and others to come to a knowledge of the truth. We cannot confess if we don't see the truth and we can't warn others of false teachers if we are fooled by their messages.
1 Thessalonians 5:21 "But examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good;"
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