How long have you been waiting? How long have you failed to confess your wrongdoings? How long have hid your favorite sins? How long have you hoped that God would not strike you down for them? Do you think you have waited too long? Have you given up hope of begin forgiven?
We all keep things hidden. We are hiding one thing or another, and perhaps more than one. We don’t want others to know about it. We sometimes think we can hide it from God. However, that is not the case. God knows it all. We are only punishing ourselves by not confessing.
The prophet Joel states that God is waiting for us. As long as we have breath in our lungs, it is not too late. We can turn back to God. We can grieve over our sins. We can confess them to God and trust that he will forgive us. Rather than continuing to suffer through our guilt, we can go to God on our knees to ask for forgiveness. We can be certain that by his grace and mercy he will accept us back into his loving arms.
We have a choice to make. We can continue to live with our guilt and continue to fool ourselves into thinking we are fooling God. Or we can come clean. We can confess before God (he already knows anyway). When we come clean with God, we relieve our conscience. The heavy weight we have been carrying around is lifted. We are set free.
I pray we all decide to come clean with God. I pray we confess the sins we have been trying to hide. I pray each one of us experience the weight being lifted from our conscience. Come clean. Confess to God. Trust him to forgive you. Clear your conscience. Be relieved. Be set free.
Joel 2:12-13
Yet even now, says the Lord,
return to me with all your heart,
with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;
rend your hearts and not your clothing.
Return to the Lord your God,
for he is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love,
and relenting from punishment.
Marty Pressey 