WHEN I CONFESS SINCERELY, GOD FORGIVE ME
Sakkie Parsons
Someone shared the following with me:
She knows this pastor, and he always sounds and appears so devout—but the woman knows the man’s past, and she cannot understand how this man can now act so piously in the congregation. She claims that it is wrong and that he should not actually be allowed to serve as a pastor in the congregation.
I don’t want to elaborate further on the lady’s conversation with me, but I want to ask you, dear reader—and let’s begin with the pastors or ministers, for whom I have great respect—those in certain denominations who present a summary of the Mosaic Law in Exodus 20 to their congregation every Sunday.
How many of those ministers or pastors, do you think, would tell you that they present that summary of the Mosaic Law because they themselves have never been guilty of breaking any of those commandments, even just from the summary?
Personally, I don’t know a single one.
Let’s narrow it down a bit more:
Who among us—you, my dear reader, think of yourself—can present Jesus’ Law of Love to others because our own lives are so flawless and we never fall short in this regard?
Now I want to share with you how we should look at situations like this. And once you’ve finished reading, you can decide for yourself whether the lady’s opinion carries any weight. As is my custom, I’ll take two examples from the precious Word of our Lord.
The first example of someone’s past that I want to highlight is King David. You can read the entire event starting in 2 Samuel 11:1.
David first sends out his army but doesn’t go with them (a big mistake). Instead, he stays idle in his palace. And we know that idleness is the devil’s playground:
2 Samuel 11:1-4
1 Then it happened in the spring, at the time when kings go out to battle, that David sent Joab and his servants with him and all Israel, and they destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained in Jerusalem.
2 One evening David got up from his couch and was walking on the flat roof of the king’s palace, and from there he saw a woman bathing; and she was very beautiful in appearance.
3 David sent word and inquired about the woman. Someone said, “Is this not Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?”
4 David sent messengers and took her. When she came to him, he lay with her. And when she was purified from her uncleanness, she returned to her house.
You can go on and read the rest of the story in 2 Samuel.
How the king abused his royal power and slept with another man’s wife—how she became pregnant. And when David could no longer hide that he had made the married woman pregnant, he arranged for her husband to be killed.
Then you can continue reading how David experienced genuine remorse, and how our Lord, in His great love and grace, completely forgave him—and even allowed David to write all those psalms, or if you will, sermons, which God saw fit to include in His Word.
Just think about that.
David lived approximately 1,000 years before Jesus.
So, for more than 3,000 years now, our Lord has continued using David’s psalms/sermons/thoughts from His precious Word to comfort, inspire, and teach you and me.
That’s how God can use a man—and also you and me—if we truly and sincerely confess the wrong in our lives and work not to do it again.
We further read the following in the Word about how our Lord felt about David:
Acts 13:22-23
22 After He had removed him, He raised up David to be their king. Of him He testified and said, ‘I have found David, the son of Jesse, a man after My heart, who will do all My will.’
23 From the descendants of this man, according to His promise, God has brought to Israel a Savior, Jesus.
Because, you see—
David had genuine remorse, and with his remorse, which our Lord could see in his heart, David confessed his sin and asked for forgiveness. And our Lord is true to His Word—even when He says:
1 John 1:9
If we freely admit our sins, He is faithful and just, true to His own nature and promises, and will forgive our sins and cleanse us continually from all unrighteousness.
What David did not do again—and what we also should not do after we’ve confessed a certain sin—is this:
We should not go and deliberately commit that sin again.
Do you remember what Jesus said to the woman caught in adultery?
John 8:10-11
10 Straightening up, Jesus said to her, “Woman, where are they? Did no one condemn you?”
11 She answered, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “I do not condemn you either. Go. From now on, sin no more.”
Do you also remember what Jesus said to her accusers? And as you read this now, also remember that Jesus is God who became man—and that He was on His way to Golgotha to carry their sins, and hers, and mine, and yours to the cross, when He said to them:
John 8:7
…“He who is without any sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.”
Saul of Tarsus—who persecuted Christians and was complicit in the murder of many believers—later became Paul of Christ. And under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, God entrusted him with writing the majority of the New Testament.
Philippians 3:12-14
12 Not that I have already obtained it [this goal of being Christlike] or have already been made perfect, but I actively press on so that I may take hold of that perfection for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.
13 Brothers and sisters, I do not consider that I have made it my own yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead,
14 I press on toward the goal to win the [heavenly] prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
How wonderful!
If I have sincerely confessed my sin to our Lord, I can know:
Romans 4:7-8
7 “Blessed and happy and favored are those whose lawless acts have been forgiven, and whose sins have been covered up and completely buried.
8 Blessed and happy and favored is the man whose sin the Lord will not take into account nor charge against him.”
Greetings,
Sakkie