December 8, 2016

Greetings My Friend, Confessing that I even had sins was a difficult part in my faith journey. I felt like I was a "good" person and I loved people and well I felt beat up enough without looking at even more things that were wrong in my life. I had hit bottom though and all my excuses were running out, still I kept hearing God say "confess" and finally I started looking at the things that kept me from drawing close to God. I found that God was not impressed with "forgive me for I have sinned" prayers all the time, He kept pointing me to name my sins, when I started looking hard at my life to see where I knew I was wrong I found myself growing closer to God. One day I realized that confessing was not as big of a deal as I had made it out to be in my heart. God started teaching me the areas where sin was holding me back from being close to Him, from not getting anywhere in life and how to let go of that sin. I started growing closer to God and moving forward in life. Some sins took me a very long time to let go of but the more I worked with God on them the more I saw the sin slipping away. Today in 1 John I read "If we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteouseness. If we say have not sinned we make Him a liar, and His Word is not in us." As I read this I felt that this was what God was teaching me, He is faithful to forgive if we confess if we don't then we are calling God a liar and this part resounded within me "and His Word is not in us." At times it is easy to pick and choose the passages that feel good and make the point we want to hear which is wrong to do. We must strive to learn all we can about God in His Word even if some of it points fingers back at us. We can't pick and choose the lessons of God but we must strive to open our heart to all of God's message and begin to apply the Word to our lives with the Holy Spirit's guidance. I ask myself after reading each day's Bible lesson What does God say and generally God points out a passage for me to focus on. Next I ask the Holy Spirit what He has to tell me, today He told me "Whoever has ears, let them hear." When I tried to pick and choose passages I rarely "heard" the Holy Spirit's guidance and was often unsure of myself and my relationship with God. Today when I start reading the Bible I pray asking God to open my eyes, my heart and my soul to His lesson for me and I hear the Holy Spirit's guidance more and more these days. Today I learned that God is speaking to all believers all the time and we must center our hearts on Him and "be still" to hear His voice. God told me in His Word that we must confess, be willing to listen, to make correction and at that point He will be just and forgive. I struggled with the process of forgiving, I realized I could voice the words in my mind or out loud but I was learning that forgiving had to start from the heart. God was willing to teach me to forgive no matter how long it took but first I had to desire to forgive deep inside of me. I learned the best way to begin the process of forgiving was to pray about the person I wanted to forgive, pray not unload my venom. At first I just said the person's name in my prayers since that was all I could do without going through a laundry list of wrongs done to me. Slowly I found myself letting go of anger and resentment, there were a few times at that point I cried out to God in pain of my soul and eventually I was able to let go and let God deal with the hurt I had in me. I admit that this process took me many years, God was healing me as I went through the process and one day I turned around to see that I had let go of the need to hurt the person who hurt me. This process of walking closer to God opens my heart to have ears that hear His voice. I can not truly hear unless I am willing to open all of my heart to God in His Word and not try to pick and choose passages that fit what I want to believe. Is the faith journey long and difficult at times, it is but it is worth it. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet