Let's Get On With Life

Dear Friends,

You may have noticed that there hasn’t been a new Plan B devotional in your inbox for several weeks. I’m sorry about that. Between summer travels and guests and sicknesses, I’ve struggled to find time to write. I hadn’t realized how long it's been until I received an email from a friend saying they hadn’t heard from me in so long they wondered if they had been dropped from the distribution list. So, I’m sorry if the lack of devotionals made you concerned as well. There was nothing wrong, other than an unexpectedly busy summer!

Since we’re on the subject of “apologies”… last week I was talking with a young woman from our church who shared with me that she’s struggling with one of her friendships. It seems she had said some hurtful things to a friend during an argument, and even though she has since apologized, her friend has not yet forgiven her. The woman from our church summed up her struggle by saying, “I just want to be forgiven so that I can stop feeling bad and we can get on with life.”

Her comment has stuck with me, and the more I've thought about it, the more I've seen how that same sentiment can often be a part of my own motivation for asking God to forgive my sins. For example, when I sin and feel bad, or guilty, or sad, or whatever the emotion is, I just want to feel better. So, I go to God and ask Him to forgive me so that I will feel better. In other words, I "just want to be forgiven so that I can stop feeling bad and we can get on with life.” The problem with this approach to confession is that it's all focused on “me”, which is not what God wants.

1 John 1:9 helps us see where our focus should be when we approach God to confess, as it tells us: “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.” In this verse, the Greek word for “confess” is “omologó” - which means, “to agree with.” So what John is telling us is that, when we confess our sins to God, we're agreeing with Him that we were wrong and have sinned. Which means it’s more than just telling God what we did wrong, it's admitting to God that He is the one we have injured by not living how He's called us to live. And while we usually do feel better after confessing our sins, getting relief from guilt should not be our motivation behind the confession. Instead, we should confess as a way to humbly acknowledge that we've offended God and we want our relationship with Him to be restored.

And the amazing thing is that, when we do ask for forgiveness, God will give it to us - no matter what we’ve done. Psalm 103:12 puts it like this: “He has removed our sins as far away from us as the east is from the west, and remembers them no more.” So today, let's put the focus back on God. Let’s be people of true confession - people who humbly come to God and admit that we've sinned against Him, and Him alone. Then let's ask Him to forgive us, not so that we'll feel better, but so that our relationship with Him will be restored - and we can live more fully for Him.

Amen?

Daniel