Tuesday, Feb. 23: 1 John 1:8-10

We can’t help but pick up some dirt in our daily walks, no matter how much we focus on God and the teachings of God. What can begin with the best attempt can turn into the worst in a manner of moments. Tell a child to “be good” and you have set him up for failure, as with sin nature, we can’t be good! “Act good, for a while,” is much more manageable! We are children of God and in the same manner that a child can’t be good, we can’t either. We have moments of following the Lord, but God has reminded us that we are sinners, saved by His grace. But God is good, and He is faithful to forgive us when we come to Him.


8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.
1 John 1:8-10 (NKJV)


Can we really make God a liar? No! He is incapable of telling a lie. What the passage is saying is that if we were telling the truth by saying that we haven’t sinned, God would be the wrong one. But we can’t even get through a day without sinning. Say that you are not a sinner, and you have sinned by lying! We are all sinners, and will continue to be sinners until we are united with our Savior.


For those of us who have accepted Jesus into our hearts as Lord and Savior, He forgave every sin that we committed before we came to Him. He also forgave every sin that we ever were going to commit. This is not a license to sin, but God understands our nature of sin. The prophet, Jeremiah, reminds us that:


9 "The heart is deceitful above all things,
And desperately wicked;
Who can know it?
Jeremiah 17:9 (NKJV)


When we come to the Lord, He replaces that heart of stone with a heart of flesh. As much as we love the Lord, we continue to sin, and from a personal standpoint, I can tell you how horrible it feels to blow it over and over again. It feels like we let God down, but for Him to feel disappointment would mean that He had other expectations. Every sin you commit, God knew you would commit! And still He saved you!


God reminds us that we are to confess our sins. If we do, He promises to forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. To me, that means that there are some sins that we are aware of and also some sins that we are not aware of. If we confess the sins that we are aware of, He also will forgive us and cleanse us from the sins we are not aware of!


What does this have to do with struggling in a recession? It gives us the perspective of what this world and what this struggle is all about. What if you lose your job? What if you miss some meals? Does it really matter in the grand scheme of it all? In that grand scheme, I will spend all of eternity with Jesus, my Savior! Take that first step upon the Word of God and stand on promise #1!