Devotional Song: Go to this link … Please take the time to see a video of Nichole Nordeman Finally Free reminding Christians that everything changes when the chains of sin are broken with confession and repentance in Christ.
Highlight Passage: James 5: 16 [NKJV} … Dave sings a medley of thanksgiving for God’s love for His people …
16 Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.
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Highlight Context - NKJV: James 5: 16-20 [NKJV] … GO TO THIS LINK …
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Reference Passage #1: 2nd Samuel 12: 1-15 … [NKJV]... GO TO THIS LINK … David confesses and repents of his sin and is mercifully spared by God, but has to deal with the consequences of his sin.
Reference Passage #2: Psalm 32: 1-5 … [NKJV] ... GO TO THIS LINK … David’s testimony of the freedom which comes from confession, repentance, and renewal.
Reference Passage #3: Psalm 139: 1-12 … [NKJV] ... GO TO THIS LINK … There’s no where we can go - in our selfishness/sin - to hide from God
Reference Passage #4: 1st John 1: 5-9… [NKJV] ... GO TO THIS LINK … The truth about how confession and repentance of sin to Christ and with other Christians produces cleansing and fellowship with the Lord.
My Journal for Today: Today’s Our Daily Bread devotional entry, authored by Julie Ackerman Link, discussed the conflict which arises in the souls of mankind between the desire to be known IN the world and the desire to hide our real selves FROM the world. And often Satan uses this conflict to keep us wrapped up in selfishness or in bondage to our shame over our deeply hidden real selves and the confession and repentance which can (and will) lead to freedom from sin in Christ.
For many years in my life, I wanted desperately to be loved and accepted by others, vying for their favor by trying to be seen as “a good guy” in the eyes of friends and family. But all that time I was deeply into a hidden, dark place in my life, involved in pornography and habitual sexual sin, habits which had me addicted to selfishness and darkness. So, like a cockroach, I hid from the light of the truth, unwilling to come to light of Christ to confess and repent of my sins.
King David was in much the same place after his affair and cover-up of his sin involving Bathsheba and his murder of Bathsheba’s husband; and for more than a year, he was out of fellowship with the Lord, walking in the darkness of shame and unreported sin. But finally, David came to confess to God, through Nathan [see 2nd Samuel 12: 1-15 linked above]. And in Psalm 32: 1-5 [also linked above], we read of David’s testimony of deliverance from the darkness into the light and the cleansing and freedom he experienced by a loving, forgiving God.
So often we miss what Jesus’ brother, James, brought out in the highlight passage above (see James 5: 16-20) as well as the cleansing we can receive when we come clean before a loving/forgiving God [see also the link to 1st John 1: 5-9]. But the question is … “Are we willing to be vulnerable and come out from under the darkness of selfishness and shame to reveal our selves before a God Who already knows who and what we are?” … Besides, as Psalm 139: 1-12 proclaims clearly, there’s nowhere we can go to hide from God anyway.
So, we might as well come out from the darkness into God’s Light (i.e., our relationship with Christ) and be cleansed from any unconfessed sin; and then to walk in the Light of repentance ever more.
My Prayer for Today … Lord, I walk to the Light - Your light. Amen
Blogger Note: Everyday during this year, my daily devotional blogs are influenced by the reading and study of the online devotional blog entitled Our Daily Bread, distributed online via email by RBC Ministries. If you GO TO THIS LINK on the date of my blog, you can read/study the ODB blogs; or you can subscribe to the blog via email at that site.
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