Confess Your Sin and Avert God’s Judgement

“You say, ‘I am innocent; surely his anger has turned from me.’ Behold, I will bring you to judgment
 for saying, ‘I have not sinned’”Jeremiah 2:35.

Ancient Israel had forsaken the one true God to serve idols. In this passage, Jeremiah the prophet is rebuking them for refusing to acknowledge their sin. To read the whole passage for context, click here.

I don’t believe it’s our sin that causes God to judge us. Rather, it’s the justification, excusing and rationalizing of the sin that brings God’s ire.

Confess Your Sin; Don’t Say I Have Not Sinned

It’s not that we’ve sinned. It’s that we’ve sinned and said, “I have not sinned”. When we fail, admit our guilt and repent, God will have mercy on us. When we hate our weaknesses, strive against them, and are dealing with them, God is patient with us.

And He will not judge us severely for it.

But when our heart grows hard, and we give up on our sin, and say not only is it too hard to overcome, but God understands, and doesn’t expect me to overcome it. That’s when we’re in trouble.

But, “if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.  If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us” 1 John 1:9, 10. 

To confess our sin is to say “I have sinned”. When we do this we’re not justifying, excusing and rationalizing it. We’re not giving up on it. We’re saying in effect, “I have a problem and I’m not going to ignore it. I’m going to deal with it”.

It’s Not So Much Our Sin as Our Attitude Toward It

It’s not so much our sin as our attitude toward that sin that hastens or protects us from judgement. With the merciful you show yourself merciful; with the blameless man you show yourself blameless” Psalm 18: 25.

And I think we could also say with the hard He must show Himself hard. But with the tender He shows himself tender.

To read another related post, to see Love Is Power.