Finally, I confessed all my sins to you and stopped trying to hide my guilt. I said to myself, “I will confess my rebellion to the Lord.” And you forgave me! All my guilt is gone. (Psalm 32:5 NLT)You did something stupid and you didn’t tell anybody, or at least you didn’t tell your mother. You hide it for sometimes years.
Then one day, you tell what you did. And the relief is immense. If nothing else, you have gotten it off your chest. You no longer have to hide whatever it was.
Sometimes it wasn’t even anything big. You broke a vase when you were five and told your mother you hadn’t. A man came in and knocked it over and laughed because you would get in trouble.
Well, of course, she didn’t believe you. Or maybe you hid it so well, she was baffled for years over whatever had happened to whatever it was.
But when you told her, you were relieved.
Maybe it is something you did to a friend that hurt them. You never told them it was you. They may have suspected but it sat there. And one day you tell your friend it was you. Even though it may damage your relationship irrevocably, still it had to be said.
Even though there is hurt, there is also relief.
The same holds true with God. You have done things that have hurt you spiritually, that have damaged your relationship with the Lord. You hide them. Even though it is impossible to hide from God, you pretend that you do.
Then one day, it all breaks out and you confess to the Lord what you have done wrong. And when you do, there is forgiveness.
Of course, there is forgiveness anyway. God forgives. Forgiveness is not dependent upon your asking. If that were so, then we are saved by works. God sees our hearts and knows how we are. And he knows our weakness.
But he also wants to hear from us that we are sorry for what we do wrong. Just like anybody wants to hear I’m sorry from someone who has done wrong to them, God wants to hear it.
And when we tell him, he has already forgiven. When we ask, we accept that forgiveness. And all of our guilt is gone.
He forgives when no one else will. He loves when no one else seems to. He accepts when everyone else rejects.
And he is with us forever.
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