Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
We looked briefly in step 4, at the life of Jonah and how he had to admit that he himself was the one in the wrong.
Admitting that we are wrong is a hard thing. If you are anything like me, there have been times where I can blame everyone around me and make it all sound really good as if things are not my fault. Excuses are too easy to come up with at times.
Recently I found myself in a situation where I had every angle covered about why things weren’t necessarily entirely my fault. “Well, if they had done this or that” was a line that I had polished up pretty well. I talked and too many people about this particular situation and everyone came back with the same piece of advice. “You know, there is a common factor in the situations that you are finding yourself in. You.”
Well, that wasn’t what I wanted to hear, but you know what, it was what I needed to hear. Whatever situations and circumstances we face, we can easily blame shift.
If you are struggling with a substance there are many things that may have happened to you, and I am in no way minimizing those events, but, no one forced those things that have a grip on your life into you. You made a series of choices that have lead to where you find yourself now. I will even say this, and this is a different discussion for a different day, but I don’t think that you have a disease either.
See, there was a point in my life where getting high was I all I wanted to do and think about. Being intoxicated was the only thing that I was focused on and if that couldn’t happen then I could not function. I had every excuse of why ‘it had to happen.’ The bottom line was, I was the problem. No one had forced me to do those drugs and smoke those things.
It was hard enough at rehab to admit to others that were there with me that I had a problem and was the problem, but now I have to admit that to God? He was the one that I was wondering if he was even real or not. My thoughts were even such that I wondered why, if there was a God, was he letting my life take the turns and bends that it was.
Proverbs 28:13-14, “He that covereth his sins shall not prosper, but whoso confessesth and forsaketh them shall have mercy. Happy is the man that feareth alway, but he that hardeneth his heart shall fall into mischief.”
You ever try and cover something up or a series of things that you have done? It’s actually rather difficult. I remember growing up when my brother and I would try and cover up things from our parents, we thought that we were really slick. The issue was we couldn’t keep track of the lies that we were telling and eventually our parents, who we thought didn’t know any better, started to figure out that our stories were making no sense at all and we were found out. What we didn’t realize that if he had just told the truth in the first place we would have nothing to worry about.
So, I wasn’t very good at trying to fool my parents and I’m sure that some of you have been in similar spots throughout your childhood or maybe you are a parent now and are experiencing this with your children.
But you have ever thought about how we try and do this with God? We try and cover up different things that we have done and cover sins that we have committed, the problem is, God already knows. The more we try and cover up things the more lies we tell others, ourselves and God and the deeper into a fantasy world we live in.
The encouraging thing is, not only when we confess but when we forsake blaming everything on everyone else and accepting our faults and wrongdoings wee can obtain mercy. 1 John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all righteousness.”
It is probably easier to ask and be given grace and mercy if we are honest and proven to be upfront rather than if we are known as a repeat liar.
David tried to cover up the death of Uriah, but when he was confronted by Nathan his sin was exposed greatly and would face hardships as a consequence of his actions.
Yes, we may be able to fool parents, accountability partners, pastors but it is never worth it because we can never fool God. He sees and knows all. Before God has to do something that gets our action and makes us realize that He knows the things that we are trying to cover up and bury and hide, let us be honest and true with others, ourselves and God.
There's A Better Life 