Saturday, April 9, 2011

Confessing to maturity and holiness

Maturity is the acceptance of responsibility: Nothing less, nothing more.  Maturity can come with age, but it doesn’t have to.  And, what’s more important to recognize is that age doesn’t always produce maturity, and it certainly doesn’t equal maturity.

In order to pray effectively you must confess your sins.  In order to confess your sins you must take responsibility for them. 

Therefore, maturity is the first step toward confession. 

And confession is the first step toward Christ. 

Maturity and confession go hand in hand.  Confession holds a negative connotation.  But it need not be so.  Confession is simply stating what is true. 
It is saying along with the Spirit of Christ.  Confession is neutral. 
The act of confessing is powerful and fruitful.  When we confess – state what is true and say along with – we are faced with the decision to either accept the responsibility for our part in that confession, which is to demonstrate maturity, or not.


This is true both for our sins as well as salvation.  When we confess our sins He is faithful to forgive us our sins.  We can only offer our sins and our shortcomings up to Christ with our own hands.  We can not have someone else offer them up for us.  In order for them to be in our hands, we must accept the responsibility for them, we must take them as ours – we must demonstrate maturity.  It is only then that we can lay them on the altar, have them covered by the ever cleansing blood of the Lamb, and unload that burden in order to be free to follow our Lord lightened by His grace.

When we confess the name of Christ, we are stating the truth of Who He is.  This is accepting what He has done in our place.  Simply confessing your sin does nothing if you do not allow Him to forgive it.  If I tell my earthly father that I have wronged him, I can only received what he can then give me.  But when I place that wrong, that sin, on the altar of the Almighty God at the hands of the one true High Priest, our Savior, Jesus Christ, those sins are then forgiven.  Therefore confession is complete when we accept the responsibility for what we have done, AND, accept the offer that He has made to forgive. 

This daily confession of both our humanity – our falling short of His will; our sin – and of His Divinity will cause us to draw nearer unto Him, to become more like Him, to live in the liberty He has given us.

Go... confess... live free!

SDG

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