Are You Confessed Up To Date?
Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. – James 5:16
When I was in my first year of seminary, a missionary named Bertha Smith spoke to a class I was in. She was a godly woman who had given her life for ministry. As she stood before our class, she looked through her glasses at us and said, “Boys, are your sins confessed up to date?” I thought to myself, “I surely think so.”
That afternoon, I got alone with the Lord, and I said, “Jesus, I want to be very specific with you. I want you to have total access to my heart and my life. Is there anything that I have said, anything that I have done, anything that I am thinking that is interfering with my relationship with you? Lord, would you reveal to me any sin specifically in my heart and in my life that I haven't confessed?”
I began to wait. I had a legal pad in front of me and I didn't think I would need much space. By the time the Holy Spirit stopped speaking to me, I had the front and back of the page full of specific things that I had overlooked. These things were breaking the heart of God and clogging my spiritual pipeline.
Let me ask you a question. When was the last time you got serious enough with God to spend time with Him to do that? So often we don't make the time to go through an exercise like this because we may not want to hear those things. Sometimes, we’ve filed away in our mind things that we have said and things that we have done. We forget about those things, brush them off, and say it's no big deal. But it is still a big deal to God!
So with all of this in mind, I want to encourage you to spend time alone with God and make sure there is no personal sin that you are harboring. If you are allowing personal sin to stay there, anger that you have justified, words you have said (although you meant it in humor), unforgiveness you’ve held onto, your prayer life will be ineffective.
If you have not dealt with the sin you have committed against someone, unless you deal with that, it will hinder your prayer life. Your family needs your prayers. Your friends need your prayers. Your circle of influence needs your prayers, but you will disqualify yourself from being on the field to make the block for them spiritually if you are not confessed up to date.
When I was in my first year of seminary, a missionary named Bertha Smith spoke to a class I was in. She was a godly woman who had given her life for ministry. As she stood before our class, she looked through her glasses at us and said, “Boys, are your sins confessed up to date?” I thought to myself, “I surely think so.”
That afternoon, I got alone with the Lord, and I said, “Jesus, I want to be very specific with you. I want you to have total access to my heart and my life. Is there anything that I have said, anything that I have done, anything that I am thinking that is interfering with my relationship with you? Lord, would you reveal to me any sin specifically in my heart and in my life that I haven't confessed?”
I began to wait. I had a legal pad in front of me and I didn't think I would need much space. By the time the Holy Spirit stopped speaking to me, I had the front and back of the page full of specific things that I had overlooked. These things were breaking the heart of God and clogging my spiritual pipeline.
Let me ask you a question. When was the last time you got serious enough with God to spend time with Him to do that? So often we don't make the time to go through an exercise like this because we may not want to hear those things. Sometimes, we’ve filed away in our mind things that we have said and things that we have done. We forget about those things, brush them off, and say it's no big deal. But it is still a big deal to God!
So with all of this in mind, I want to encourage you to spend time alone with God and make sure there is no personal sin that you are harboring. If you are allowing personal sin to stay there, anger that you have justified, words you have said (although you meant it in humor), unforgiveness you’ve held onto, your prayer life will be ineffective.
If you have not dealt with the sin you have committed against someone, unless you deal with that, it will hinder your prayer life. Your family needs your prayers. Your friends need your prayers. Your circle of influence needs your prayers, but you will disqualify yourself from being on the field to make the block for them spiritually if you are not confessed up to date.
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4 Comments
This exercise is needed... I had no idea that confessing out loud would help in such a way. Asking for forgiveness is necessary and having the capacity to pray for others is a must in this life. I will do this today
I need to do this exercise more often. I am always asking for for forgiveness but I may still be missing something. The Holy Spirit is faithful to show me the errors of my ways. Thank You Father for loving me so much that You correct me when I am wrong
This is such a wonderful and pertinent step we must take in our daily walk with the Lord! Thank you for bringing it to the forefront. It is truly part of our foundational walk with Jesus. If our foundation is not built on truth and willingness to be fully transparent with the Lord and fully obedient to His Scripture, then our whole relationship with Him will always be in want. Thank you, Pastor Dodd, for reminding us that to be in complete unison with Christ and His desires and plans for our lives, and further to be an effective warrior in the field of prayer in the spiritual, we MUST be aligned with God's Scripture and plans in our own lives before we can be effective on the field for others in the spiritual. (Like it is that a mother or father must first put on one's own oxygen mask on an airplane, midflight, when the cabin pressure drops and life-saving oxygen is needed to sustain mortal life, and then one may place the oxygen mask on his/her, child to be able to safely and effectively help them...so it is so in the spiritual...and even more so! If we don't place our "spiritual" oxygen mask on, securely, first, (first confessing our sins and asking forgivness for them, and putting the 'full armor or God" on before we begin to pray and intercede for others through, our spiritual warring against the works if the enemy will be fruitless, left lacking and ineffective.
Thank you, Pastor Dodd, for this very important reminder! I plan to do this as well, privately with the Lord, so there will be nothing between He and I that may impede my effectiveness at being an obedient and effective warrior for Christ...on and off the field!!!ðŸ™ðŸ™ŒðŸ™ŒðŸ™
Praise God for his Grace and Mercy ! I need to spend more time n prayer, giving praise and thanks for God !