If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 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 that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.
1 John 1:9 NKJV

There are many passages in the Bible that begin with, “Do not be deceived.” The worst kind of deception is the lies we tell ourselves.

For many years one of the biggest lies I told myself was that I was not sinning. I kept one foot in the world and one foot in the church. I didn’t study my Bible. I prayed as if it were 911, only in case of emergencies. I just lived my life as I wanted to and told myself that it was all good. That was a big, fat lie. And it was one that I told myself for many years. I tried to find happiness, but I had no peace and joy.

It would take a while for me to get it through my thick skull that maybe, just maybe, some of those hard times were because of my hard head. Maybe I suffered because I had failed to surrender. It’s possible that God was trying to give me a wake-up call. And I’m sad to say that it took a while for it to all sink in.

As with any situation, the first thing I had to do was to admit there was a problem. I certainly didn’t think the hard times were my fault. If things weren’t going well in my life, I was quick to point the finger at someone else and their actions. It wasn’t my fault, it was someone else’s fault. Whatever had gone wrong in my life was the result of what someone else did. I had to face the fact that I was a sinner and many of these things that went wrong were because of my sin. I had to accept responsibility.

I had to stop going to church and get into church. I had to go to Sunday School and actually study the lesson which was studying God’s word. I had to attend Sunday night’s Bible study and Wednesday night as well. And when I sat in church services, I had to really listen to what the preacher had to say.

And I must warn you as a baby Christian, I was fooled by a few false preachers. I’m happy to say, though, because I was in a church with a good Bible teaching pastor, it didn’t take long to figure out the lies of these false preachers. James 1:5 tells us if we lack wisdom, we can pray for wisdom, and God will give it generously and without reproach. This means God will be glad to give us wisdom with fault finding and will extend it with His patience and grace towards us.

I had to confess my sins. I couldn’t just go to God with my troubles. I had to turn my sins over to Him as well. I had to rid myself of them. The great thing is He is there to help us do that with His strength and under His power.

And just like our Scripture passage says, “If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” And the really beautiful thing is that He will remove that sin from us. So, we can confess it and He will forgive it and forget it. We are told in Psalm 103:12 that God will remove our sins as far as the east is from the west.

He replaced my sin and misery with peace and joy.

Sadly, my sin was all my fault and yours is too. The good news is that He will remove that sin. He will cleanse you from it. All you have to do is ask.

Have a great day!