“Beloved, if our
heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God;” 1 John 3:21
NASB.
The real question is
why should our heart condemn us? God has promised us that ‘if we confess
our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse
us from all unrighteousness.’ 1 John 1:9 KJV. It is impossible for God to lie. ‘So that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to
lie, we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to take hold
of the hope set before us. This hope
we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast and one
which enters within the veil, where Jesus has entered as a forerunner
for us, having become a high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.’
Hebrews 6:18-20 NASB. Since Jesus greatly loves us, suffered and died for us on
the cross for our sins, and is now in Heaven as our High Priest, we do have an
anchor indeed for our soul! He will plead our case with His Father because He
loves us, if we will confess them to God. We
can trust that if we confess our sins, that God not only has forgiven us, but
that He will also cleanse us from all unrighteousness, that is to make us more
like Him, because it is impossible for Him to lie! So just believe it! So
there is no reason for anyone who knows this to have any guilt in their heart!
Why would you want to carry this heavy
load of guilt? Jesus bore it for you, oh sinner on the cross for you, if
you will accept it and believe. So confess your sins, and let Him take that
load of guilt off of you now. There is no reason for you to carry it for a
moment. Just confess and be free and
cleansed and be happy!
Could this be the
reason why many do not have the confidence in God that they should have? Could
it be because their own heart condemns them, and they know that they stand
guilty before God? You cannot have
peace until you have confessed all of your sins, including not loving God with
all of your heart, mind and soul – yes, that’s a sin! “Jesus said unto him,
‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,
and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment.’” Matthew 22:37-38 KJV. This is the same thing as the
First Commandment in Exodus 20:3. Of all
of God’s commandments in the Bible, we believe that this is the most broken
one! If you break any of God’s commandments, you are also sinning against Him
by not loving Him more than anything else. So
it appears that this could be the reason why many are not where they should be
spiritually, even those who have been Christians for many years. Lack of
full, specific confession to God may very well be indicated. This may also be the reason why many do not
love Jesus or His Father enough to obey all of their commandments, because their
heart is not clear with God. We must
want to obey everything that God has told us to do, or revealed by His Holy Spirit
to us personally, if we want to have full confidence before Him. (The Holy
Spirit never contradicts the Bible.)
If we want to have confidence toward God, we must confess
all of our sins and believe and want to obey Him. “But we are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those
who have faith to the preserving of the soul.” Hebrews 10:39 NASB. If we
have confidence in God, then we will have confidence in our salvation that He
is giving us, because it is impossible for God to lie. If we love God we should know that He loves us, and that our salvation
is secure in Him, and no one can take it away from us but ourselves. Paul
says, “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who
are in Christ Jesus.” Romans 8:1 NASB. Are
you in Christ Jesus? Then there is no more condemnation for you! But why would anyone want to walk away from
the salvation that God is offering them?
If you know that you
have not kept all of God’s commandments, the first step to fixing this (the
first step), is to confess these sins to
God, and let Him cleanse them from you, and He will. This is His work
for you, not your own. If you wait until you are ‘good enough’, whatever
that means, it will NEVER happen. Only God can produce this change in you, not
yourself. All of our efforts to save
ourselves are utterly useless. Only God can save. If you are tired of the guilt, and tired of
the endless round of sinning, hurting yourself and others, then allow God to
cleanse you and make you happy! It’s the only way you can be free and be
happy!
Guilt may also be the
reason why many do not love God as they should, for if they were free of this
heavy load they would want to obey Him, or they do not fully appreciate this
forgiveness. They have been forgiven little. Jesus said, “Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins (Mary Magdalene), which
are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is
forgiven, the same loveth little.” Luke 7:47 KJV. Jesus was
speaking this to a Pharisee named Simon, who had been healed of leprosy. See
Matthew 26:6 for this other account that mentions that Simon was a leper, when Mary
anointed Jesus’ feet, and Luke 7:36. While we don’t have proof that Jesus
healed Simon, we have the fact that He and others were at his house, and that
the Law of Moses forbids people from associating with lepers, Leviticus 13:45-46,
because it says that the leper must cry ‘Unclean! Unclean!’ and must remain
outside the camp, i.e. outside Israel, unless they are cured of leprosy. We
also know that Jesus healed lepers (Luke 17:11-19), so it is natural to
conclude that Jesus must have healed Simon of his leprosy, and that this man
had invited Jesus to his home in gratitude. But apparently this man had some sins that hadn’t been forgiven, or
maybe he had sins that he really didn’t want forgiven? Maybe he didn’t see
all of his sins and his great need of forgiveness like Mary did? Whatever the case, he wasn’t truly grateful
for his healing or for God’s forgiveness. (Yes, the fact that God was
willing for him to be healed indicated that He had pardoned or wanted to pardon
him, since He gave him a new lease on life by healing him of leprosy.) If he
had truly believed that he was a sinner in great need of forgiveness and had been
forgiven of all of his sins, he should have been as happy as Mary was, and even
more so since Jesus had healed him from that living death of leprosy! Read
the whole sad account in Luke 7:36-50 and in Matthew 26:6-13. Whenever someone sees their true guilt, and
realizes that only God can pardon all of these sins, confesses and believes,
then they will be so happy and be free! For all have sinned and come short
of the glory of God (Romans 3:23), so all must confess their sins to God if
they want to be free and happy. Then they will love God greatly! So those who have been forgiven little,
because they have confessed little, also love God little, and have little faith
in Him. And they do not have confidence before Him that they would have
if they had been forgiven much. It’s
easy to love God, if you believe that you have been forgiven! It is the
most natural thing in the world! You
can’t help but love Him like Mary did when He removes that awful load of guilt
from you and you are free! “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.”
John 8:36 KJV. There is no good reason why every Christian shouldn’t be free
from the weight of sin, because Jesus has made all who believe in Him free by
His death on the cross for our sins. John 3:16-17. Those that have been
forgiven little, love God little, and have little faith, and their heart
condemns them.
If you will confess
all of your sins, God has promised to forgive you and cleanse you from all
unrighteousness. Then when you are free from guilt, you will be free to
have confidence in Him. When you are free from all of your sins, then you
can pray what John says next after our main text: “And whatsoever we ask, we receive of Him, because
we keep His commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in His
sight.” 1 John 3:22 KJV. This prayer is
for all those who have confessed their sins to God, and are free and have
confidence in Him. If we are free and love Him, He will help us to keep all
of His commandments and do the things that are pleasing to Him, and He will
hear our prayers. What a wonderful
promise! You don’t have to worry on how you can be good, if you will
just confess your sins, and allow God to cleanse you from all unrighteousness,
He will do it for you! Amen!
John
also says this in another way: “But if we walk
in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and
the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin.” 1 John 1:7 KJV.
So if we want to be cleansed from all
sin, we must also walk in the light as God is light. “If we say
that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the
truth:” 1 John 1:6 KJV. If we say that we have fellowship with God, that is
to say, if we say that we are a Christian, if we walk in darkness then we are a
liar and the truth is not in us. To put this with what we quoted from in 1 John
3:21, earlier in this article: if we
have confidence in God, then we are walking in the light, and have fellowship
with one another, and then the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all
sin. If we walk not in the light, and do not have fellowship with one another,
then we do not have confidence before God, and our sin remains.
If we have confessed all of our sins, we will believe that God has forgiven us, and cleansed us from all unrighteousness, and we will be confident that He loves us, and we will walk in the light of His love, and we will have fellowship with one another, because the blood of Jesus has cleansed us from all sin! Therefore all who believe in Jesus should also have this confidence in God. So confess your sins and believe, and then your heart will not condemn you, and you will walk in the light of His love, because the blood of Jesus cleanses you from all sin! Amen.
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