Tag: Confession

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The Beauty of the Ashes: Search Me O God

Search Me O God

O God, you know my foolishness,
and my faults are not hidden from you.

Psalm 69:6

abraham-lincoln-quotesThere are many wise sayings attributed to Abraham Lincoln. One of the most common is this:

“You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.”

That’s true, but there’s one person you can’t fool, any of the time – Jesus Christ. By the very definition of being God, knows everything we’ve ever done, said or thought. Yet sometimes we act as if we can fool Jesus by not admitting our sinfulness to him. How foolish we are.

God knew everything we would ever do, say or think before the world was created, so why do we act like we can hide anything from Him? When we realize that Jesus Christ, our Creator God, loves us in spite of all our foolishness and sins, we can finally become who He created us to be.

Real joy comes from being who God made us to be. Yes, even with all our faults and failures. The Father doesn’t want us to pretend we’re perfect. He doesn’t want us to try and please Him in our own power, trying to be someone we can’t be on our own. He wants us to give Him all of ourselves; all our sins, all our foolishness, all our hurts, hang ups and bad habits, and then let Him remake us into the beauty of His image; the image He bestowed within humanity in creation. When we realize this, confession becomes something, we long for, not something from which we run and hide.

‘Real joy comes from being who God made us to be.’

One of the reasons I love the season of Lent is that it offers us time to concentrate on becoming who we were made to be. Through increased times of prayer and fasting we place ourselves under the light of God’s loving microscope. We ask him to search our hearts as it says in the Psalms…

Search me, O God, and know my heart!
Try me and know my thoughts!
And see if there be any grievous way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting!

Psalm 139:23-24

On this second Friday of Lent, why not spend some time in confession. Ask the Lord to search you out, to show you all your foolish ways. Stop trying to fool the One who knows you better than you know yourself. Prayerfully read and meditate on Psalms 139 and 51. Allow the Holy Spirit to check your spirit, to lead you in confessing everything He shows you. Ask Him to burn away all the sin and shame He reveals to you, then watch as He brings beauty out of your ashes.

Shalom for a Holy Lent,

Pastor Brad

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Father, Forgive Me…

5 I acknowledged my sin to thee, and I did not hide my iniquity; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD”; then thou didst forgive the guilt of my sin. [Selah]

Psalm 32:5

Have you performed any penance lately? Think for a moment of the most humbling experience of your life. Without a doubt mine was my first confession in the Catholic Church. For those who don’t know my story I converted to Catholicism as a teenager, before finding my call to ministry in the Church of the Nazarene as an adult. Before I could officially join the church I had to confess my sins to God in the presence of the priest who was receiving me into the church. As I knelt down to confess, my knees trembled. My heart began to race… “Father, forgive me for I have…”

For those who are not familiar with Catholic theology, Confession is recognized as a Sacrament reconciling the sinner to God. Not that confession isn’t made to God right from the heart of the penitent. It is. Forgiveness comes from God alone, even for the Catholic. However, the Church eventually developed the practice of private confession both as a means of grace and a help to the penitent. After all, St. James does admonish us to confess to one another.

 “Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed.” (James 5:16 ESV).

The practice of private confessions does have scriptural roots. In St. John’s gospel, chapter 20, the resurrected Jesus breathes upon his disciples in the Upper Room and tells them to receive the Holy Spirit. He then commissions them with power to offer His forgiveness, or to withhold it.

“If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.” (John 20:23 ESV)

Much of sacramental confession was lost over the years of the Protestant Reformation. Many Reformers were skeptical of the power the ‘Church’ held and was seemingly wielding over people. Certainly abuses had crept in over the centuries. Today, praying certain Psalms can be a beautiful form of confession. I even know a Pastor in a Charismatic, Evangelical church in Houston who put in a confessional booth. He said the lines are quite long. It seems many see a need for a person to person unburdening of themselves.

Yesterday Psalm 31 reminded us of the shame we feel in the guilt of our sin. Today, Psalm 32 offers us a penitential spirit. Confession is definitely good for the soul, and good for the heart and mind as well. We must confess our sins to God to obtain God’s forgiveness through Jesus Christ. However, being penitent is about more than just about obtaining forgiveness, it’s about saying – “I’m sorry”.

Sorrow is the main condition for any repentance. Without it our confession is hollow. Psalm 32 shows us the heart of the penitent, and the anguish of our souls when we carry the burden of our guilt without confessing…

“3 When I declared not my sin, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long.

4 For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. [Selah]” (Psalm 32:3,4)

After finishing with my list of sins, the priest gave me a penance to carry out, not to obtain forgiveness; God’s grace is free. Rather, the penance was for me to show God my sorrow. I can’t put into words how hard it was for me to open up and speak of my sins to another human being. It was ultimately humiliating. But when I was through, I walked out of that confessional on a cloud. My burden had been lifted and my friend, and pastor had spoken God’s assurance of forgiveness over me.

I wish I could say that to you that I was so humiliated in confessing that I never sinned again – but I can’t. But the experience was healing as St. James said. I still think about the words of counsel I received in that confession, words meant to help me resist temptation.

What about you? Done any penance lately? Have you told the Lord how sorry you are for your sins? Even though most Protestant churches don’t have a ritual of confession, they all have Pastors. Your pastor can be your confessor. In years of pastoral ministry many people have sat in my office to confess and unburden their souls. I’d like to believe they too left on a cloud knowing another human being cared enough to listen and speak God’s assurance of forgiveness to them.

 Shalom,

Pastor Brad

image credit: http://houseofthetransfiguration.com/thoughts-on-confession/