6/23/2007

I'm back!! The site has been down for a few years due to a variety of challenges in my life. I honestly didn't know if I would ever put the site back up. But here it is! I feel like I'm starting all over again struggling to build traffic to the site. But I'm very happy to say that my wonderful wife is very supportive and very excited about this website and really wants to be involved with it. She has some great ideas that may be coming soon.

I have been thinking quite a bit about how we are forgiven of our sins and what we should do to be forgiven. I was thinking more along the lines of confessing sins. If we harm someone with a sin of ours, what should we do? Just quietly ask God to forgive us and move on? For example, if we have lied to someone, should we come clean and admit this to the person we lied to? Yes, we should. I think its very cruel and sinful to allow a person continue to believe something that is not true. Responsible adults really need the whole truth about everything in order to make their own decisions and live their lives in reality, rather than basing their decisions and living their lives in some fantasy world based on a lie or lies.

I don't think God can forgive us if we are not honest about what we did wrong, and are not truly sorry for it. If we are truly sorry for what we have done wrong, then we will desire to repair the damage we have caused. For example, if we have caused someone to believe something that is not true, then we would go to that person, correct our mistake, and apologize for it. Set the record straight and come clean. And of course, we would ask God to forgive us. Repent of our sins and ask for forgiveness. Forgiveness starts with being honest. First of all, we must be brave enough to be truthful. We must be brave enough to confess what we have done before we can be forgiven.

Regardless of the lies you may have been taught in church, its NOT ok to go around leaving a path of destruction, pain, and misery with our sin. Freely sinning and saying a private two second prayer to God asking for forgiveness is not living as a Christian. God's grace is NOT a license to sin. Even if your church tells you its ok as long as you go to THAT church and listen to THEIR message. Don't believe them if they are trying to tell you that the more you sin, the more good you will be doing by creating more grace. We don't create God's grace. It is HIS and HIS alone. God will hold us responsible if we just go listen to a preacher for an hour on Sunday morning and don't care enough to read the Bible for ourselves to see what God really wants us to do. As Christians we need to take responsibility for our sin. We need to clean up the mess it has caused. A lot of churches teach the part about asking God for forgiveness, but forget to teach the part about confessing our sins to one another and taking responsibility for our sin. Repairing the damage it has caused.

Confess your sins to God and to one another:

Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed.- James 5:16