How blessed and relieved are those who have confessed their corruption to God! For he wipes their slates clean and removes hypocrisy from their hearts. Before I confessed my sins, I kept it all inside; my dishonesty devastated my inner life, causing my life to be filled with frustration, irrepressible anguish, and misery. The pain never let up, for your hand of conviction was heavy on my heart. My strength was sapped, my inner life dried up like a spiritual drought within my

If we boast that we have no sin, we’re only fooling ourselves and are strangers to the truth. But if we freely admit our sins when his light uncovers them, he will be faithful to forgive us every time. God is just to forgive us our sins because of Christ, and he will continue to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (‭‭1 John‬ ‭1:8) Many say, “OK I might have done this little thing, but that’s NOTHING compared to what THEY have done!” But there are no grey areas. As I understa

When people work, they earn wages. It can’t be considered a free gift, because they earned it. But no one earns God’s righteousness. It can only be transferred when we no longer rely on our own works, but believe in the one who powerfully declares the ungodly to be righteous in his eyes. It is faith that transfers God’s righteousness into your account! … What happy fulfilment is ahead for those whose rebellion has been forgiven and whose sins are covered by blood. What happy

God designed us to feel remorse over sin in order to produce repentance that leads to victory. (2 Cor 7:10) Many years ago, an archer would take aim at a target and if they missed it would be classed as sin – whether it was by an inch or a mile! Sin therefore means to simply ‘miss the mark.’ Whenever we ‘sin’ we miss the mark that our loving Father has set for us, and we can’t whine, sulk or even pout at his choice of mark either – because his Holy Spirit is IN us to help us

Before I confessed my sins, I kept it all inside; my dishonesty devastated my inner life, causing my life to be filled with frustration, irrepressible anguish, and misery. The pain never let up, for your hand of conviction was heavy on my heart. My strength was sapped, my inner life dried up like a spiritual drought within my soul. Pause in his presence Then I finally admitted to you all my sins, refusing to hide them any longer. I said, “My life-giving God, I will openly ack

Lord, who dares to dwell with you? Who presumes the privilege of being close to you, living next to you in your shining place of glory? Who are those who daily dwell in the life of the Holy Spirit? (Psa 15:1) I’d just left Bible College and we were offered a break with some other students in the south of France. Anyway, the Pastor of a small Church asked me to speak some words of words of encouragement at the Sunday service. We all prayed most of the night and I was excited.

Here’s what I’ve learned through it all: Don’t give up; don’t be impatient; be entwined as one with the Lord. Be brave and courageous, and never lose hope. Yes, keep on waiting—for he will never disappoint you! (Psa 27:14) Why do we give up – because we want our own way? Why are we impatient – because we’re selfish and want it now! Why do we separate ourselves from our entwinement – because we’ve learned nothing from Eve and like her, we can be easily led. Why do we need to b

Jesus said, “…Take it from me: Unless a person is born from above, it’s not possible to see what I’m pointing to—to God’s kingdom.” “How can anyone,” said Nicodemus, “be born who has already been born and grown up? You can’t re-enter your mother’s womb and be born again. What are you saying with this ‘born-from-above’ talk?” Jesus said, “You’re not listening. Let me say it again. Unless a person submits to this original creation—the ‘wind-hovering-over-the-water’ creation, th

“… Jesus—‘God saves’—because he will save his people from their sins.” (‭‭Mat 1:20) If we define ‘sin’ as wanting to aim for a target – and missing. Then it explains an awful lot of all the resolutions we’ve ever made and yet never accomplish … “I’ll love you forever!” “I PROMISE that I’ll NEVER do that again!” “I’ll NEVER go back to that …! “I’ll stop drinking/ smoking/ lying /the drugs/ the porn/ …!” The thing is, a fish caught on a line CANNOT get free in its o

But you, dear friends, carefully build yourselves up in this most holy faith by praying in the Holy Spirit, staying right at the center of God’s love, keeping your arms open and outstretched, ready for the mercy of our Master, Jesus Christ. This is the unending life, the real life! Go easy on those who hesitate in the faith. Go after those who take the wrong way. Be tender with sinners, but not soft on sin. The sin itself stinks to high heaven. And now to him who can ke

… sin didn’t, and doesn’t, have a chance in competition with the aggressive forgiveness we call grace. When it’s sin versus grace, grace wins hands down. All sin can do is threaten us with death, and that’s the end of it. Grace, because God is putting everything together again through the Messiah, invites us into life—a life that goes on and on and on, world without end. (Rom 5:20) Sinning. Doing the wrong thing. Missing the mark. Peer pressure only works when we put o

We’re all like sheep who’ve wandered off and gotten lost. We’ve all done our own thing, gone our own way. And GOD has piled all our sins, everything we’ve done wrong, on him, on him. (‭Isaiah‬ ‭53‬:‭6) It’s interesting what Papà calls sin … Come home and ask him yourself. X #independence #forgiveness #Papa #home #HolySpirit #love #God #sin #Jesus

…sin didn’t, and doesn’t, have a chance in competition with the aggressive forgiveness we call grace. When it’s sin versus grace, grace wins hands down. All sin can do is threaten us with death, and that’s the end of it. Grace, because God is putting everything together again through the Messiah, invites us into life—a life that goes on and on and on, world without end. (Rom 5:20). I read this and my heart echoes Paul’s conversion statement: “Grace mixed with faith and love p

…let us strip off and throw aside every encumbrance (unnecessary weight) and that sin which so readily (deftly and cleverly) clings to and entangles us, and let us run with patient endurance and steady and active persistence the appointed course of the race that is set before us (Heb 12:1). Sin (like mud on our shoes and brambles on our path), is just part of the walk. If you’ve never stumbled then I question whether you’re even human! Listen up – everyone falls, everyone fai

Now all glory to God, who is able to keep you from falling away and will bring you with great joy into his glorious presence without a single fault.  Jude 1:24 (New Living Translation) There is no such thing as God overlooking sin. That is where people make a great mistake with regard to God’s love; they say “God is love and of course He will forgive sin”: God is HOLY love and of course He CANNOT forgive sin!  Therefore if God does forgive, there must be a reason that justifi

We are not ‘acquainted with grief’ in the same way our Lord was acquainted with it. We endure it and live through it, but we do not become intimate with it. At the beginning of our lives we do not bring ourselves to the point of dealing with the reality of sin. We look at life through the eyes of reason and say that if a person will control his instincts, and educate himself, he can produce a life that will slowly evolve into the life of God. But as we continue on through lif