Cleansed From... Everything.

Church Family:
It sure does hurt when somebody lies to you, right? But what about when you lie to yourself? Deceiving yourself can be much worse and even have eternal consequences. Often you do not even know you are self-deceived. Being self-deceived is when you believe something to be true about yourself when there is incontrovertible evidence that what you are believing is clearly false. For example, you may believe that you are a generally happy person, yet those around you experience your anger throughout the day. When we lie to ourselves, those lies may have eternal consequences. The Apostle John writes, "when we think that we are living life without sin we are lying to ourself and the truth of God is not in us while we also make God a liar" (1 John 1:8-9).

God does not want us to be self-deceived. He wants us to live in truth about ourselves which leads to having an abundance of joy in our life. We are self-deceived about our sin when we do not acknowledge our own personal sin struggles. Sometimes we make excuses for sin, minimize sin, shift the blame for our sin on others, or play the victim that we were the ones wronged. When this happens we are the only one deceived of our "sinlessness." John says, “we deceive ourselves.” Nobody else is deceived by us thinking that we are without sin, because they see our sin and they usually experience our sin firsthand. And we definitely do not deceive God that we are without sin, He knows each one of our sins even when they remain internal sins of the mind and heart (Ps. 139:1-4).

The Bible is clear, a Christian does not live without sin, so God calls to live a life of ongoing sensitivity to sin. God wants you to know your sin and hate your sin, so that it propels you to personal, heart-wrenching confession of that sin to God. When that happens God is not waiting to respond to you with shame, defeat, guilt, despair or misery. He stands ready to do a complete gracious cleansing work through the life and work of Jesus Christ. Repentance and confession of sin are part of a normal, ongoing disciplined Christian life. The proper attitude of the Christian toward sin is not to deny that you have a sin problem. Instead, realize the ongoing reality of your sin and then be quick to confess it to God who is “faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from ALL unrighteousness.” God cleanses your heart, mind and life. There is not one unrighteous thing you can do that He cannot cleanse. When you live in this truth, God will not bring up your sins again. You are completely cleansed of those sins through the work of Jesus Christ. Confess your sins and enjoying the cleansing truth in Jesus Christ.

When is the last time you have confessed your sins to God in complete brokenness?

Have you experienced Christ's complete cleansing, healing, gracious, merciful work?

See you Sunday, cleansed from all unrighteousness: Steve