Confessions? How about flee?

This email is rated HG – HolySpirit Guidance. Since this email may contain scenes of unashamed vulnerability, spiritual violence in wrestling not against flesh and blood and very strong language, reader discretion is advised

(cue the intro music…….)
(that’s my way of preparing you for a really intense email – its been a while…might as well come back guns blazing and swinging at the principalities right?..you know how we do…its a MAD world out there I’m just trying to earn God some glory before I go out 🙂

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All week last week, not just at church, I’ve been meeting youth who’ve saying the same thing over and over last week. I really began to get to me. Bottom line is, I heard so many times from so many different people last week, that thers stuff you have to do first before going to God. Or seeking God. And they are right but I want take it a step further. I wanna say that believe or not, before you can even get your confession out of your mouth it is God, who supposedly loves your, who comes looking for you. He isn’t human. He isn’t sitting there waiting gloating or sulking cause you messed up and needs to hear you say sorry like Bernie Mac in meet the parents. Where his wife went off to her friends and wouldn’t come home till he came begging in front of her friends that he was sorry.

Below is a something I’ve shared before. Seems like I need to reruns of some of the stuff I sent out.

Flee to Christ as Soon as Sin Is Committed– 1892.—
Many don’t pray when they do wrong or sin against God. They feel the guilt and the condemnation. So they wait hoping God forgets or has moved on to something else or they think they have to do something to earn His favour or even His forgiveness. They say, I can’t hold up holy hands before God, without risking His anger or wrath. Or they say they can’t hold up their holy hands before God without doubting.
As soon as you commit sin, you should run into God’s arms. “Flee to the throne of grace, and tell Jesus all about it! You should be filled with sorrow because your sin has weakened your own spirituality, grieved the heavenly angels and wounded and bruised the loving heart of Jesus your Redeemer.  Do not doubt His divine mercy or refuse the comfort of God’s infinite love.
.–Bible Echo, Feb. 1, 1892. (Discourse at Melbourne, Australia, Dec. 19, 1891ec. 19, 1891
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Saul to Paul  – Didn’t even realize his right things were wrong things.

Can you keep track of everything you do wrong? So by admitting the wrongs you know are you really covered? Or is it slightly possible you may have left some stuff out? Confession is for YOUR HEART not God’s mood swings. Its for you. We’re the ones with hangups and issues. We do it cause we need to admit and say it more than God needs to hear it. He already knows your heart. He was there when you were sinning anyway. Thousands of years ago He was in the moment that you’re caughtup in and struggling with today. You cant surprise Him with your mess.

Jacob to Israel – Thought he was so far gone that hope began to die, his heart couldn’t even bear to say I’m sorry.
He was broken. He was lying out in the wilderness of a barren desert. But the desert and the wilderness was more in his heart than the wasteland around him. I ask you a question. What will you do the day you’re so depressed you cant confess or even face up to your sins. If seeking and facing God is first dependent on you’re “ability” to say sorry then you are without hope when you’re so far gone you’ve got no strength anymore.

Yes confess your sins!

Yes admit when you do wrong, even to people let alone God!

Yes, but sometimes, you may (hopefully not) do something so wrong that you cant even find it in you to admit it to yourself. You may begin to lose hope.

My only point in this entire email is believe in God. Don’t believe in yourself even a moment. Because your human love is compelling you to think you have an immediate duty to confess the moment you remember your sins. And you’re partly right. Even this is vanity and self-deception.  There is a more excellent way. I’m saying even the thought of saying I’m sorry, the humility to say it and the will power to mean it all come from God as gifts to a willing heart that must simply believe He loves me no matter what. There is nothing that you do good that’s from you. Even the ability to pray let confess during prayer is God given.

If you’re thinking you HAVE to say sorry first before saying anything else to God, I fear for the day when you do something so big so wrong, that you’re ashamed to put yourself in front of God. Where will your hope be then? Where will your theology be on that day when you just cant bring yourself to do it?
Look at you…forcing yourself to the back of the line of prayers reaching God if you even get in line because you feel so ashamed. Who told you to stand way over there? Will you not accept the unconditional love of God? No matter what we might say. Because we honestly believe that God suffers from mood swings and that He does treat us differently when we do wrong, we separate ourselves from him when we sin. We say He loves us no matter what but don’t believe and don’t mean it. Again…who told you to stand way over there in your filth? Why are at the back of the line in your filthy rags. Why must you make God get up and walk all the way to the back of the line of billions of people to come get you cause you’re prayers are shuffling its feet in shame. We’re lucky He’s pursued with an everlasting love (jeremiah).

Do you know that your only hope is actually totally opposite of how you think?

You’re only hope, just like in Eden when WE fell, your only hope is that IT IS GOD who comes LOOKING for US when WE do wrong. And just like Adam and Eve’s denial…it is the love of God that rescues you ANYWAY even if you cant bring yourself to say I’m sorry. Again. Hear me. I’m not saying don’t say sorry. I’m saying try and learn from Adam and Eve and be better. When God comes looking for you in the garden of your life. (Again He makes the first move)..then run into His arms. In fact, the word in the extract at the beginning of this email says “flee”. Translated to mean actually RUN AWAY VERY FAST. Run away from what…?

Away from your guilt and shame and sadness
Away from the idea that you cant approach boldly
Flee from your misconceptions of love
Flee from your self-bashing and denial of healing.
Flee from hanging on to doubt and depression
Flee from doing it again.

Do you know what you’re doing? Since you’re guilt (sins) have separated yourself from God and you must get rid of them first before you and God can interact intimately and lovingly on any other issue there is NO DIFFERENCE between what youre doing and flagellation. Google it. It’s a practice amoung priests of some religions to punish themselves by whipping themselves as a form of penance. For example the one guy called Dominicus Loricatus once repeated the entire Pslams 20 times in one week and accompanied that with 100 lashes to his own back. To beat wrongness out of him. To hang on to piety. You’re thinking right now Andrew that’s not what I’m doing. I wanna be right with God so I want get the wrong stuff out of the way and off my chest so I can have peace.

I’m saying again…once more for the slow people. Don’t say sorry from way over there….. don’t beat yourself up with saying sorry. Stop letting guilt make you stand at the back of the line or go without food (prayer) for DAYS ON END cause you’re thinking He wont answer cause yotu messed up and must first sort out the mess before you too are ok. Guys…God isn’t human. He’s not your girlfriend or your boyfriend, whom you have make it up to them when you do them wrong. God just wants you close.

Like a little child. Yes you broke the window. But the moment dad walks in from work, flee madly into his arms and just throw yourself into him. In THAT position of being IN HIS ARMS that you then confess..not from way over there. Not from days of not praying cause you cant bring yourself to ask God for your needs or talk to Him about stuff cause your mistakes keep replaying in your head. That’s the only bone I have to pick with perfectionist confessionists. They confess piously from way over theeeerrrrrreeeee.

Adam and Eve weren’t cursed cause they couldn’t say sorry. They were cursed because the fruit of the tree was already in them. The curses were the only logical outcome. What was done was done. God didn’t suddenly divine that punishment strategically in His mind due to the fall. The fall resulted in the curses. But because they didn’t know what they had done, God had spell it out to them figuratively in advance what they had done. And later on, it took the nearly a thousand years of living to see what they had done. The curses were merely consequences. If God could have cursed Himself (which He could only do later on the cross) that moment He would have but that would have been cheating. So He merely told Adam and Eve and Satan of the consequences of their actions.

But notice that Adam and Eve also ran away…typical human thinking. We many times perpetuate the mistakes of our parents. Over who knows how many thousand years ago, they did what we’re still doing today. Breaks God’s heart every time. Such a shame the hurt we cause Him sometimes because of our spiritual stubbornness and our righteous ignorance. The one person in the universe who loves you most, that you need most is the one you CONSISTENTLY run away from WHEN YOU NEED HIM MOST cause YOU think you cant or shouldn’t face Him before ”handling business”.

Your sins have separated you…do you know that actually means? Notice that verse doesn’t say your sins have separated us from each other.

It’s like a wife that a man loves and hasn’t seen in years worrying about what she said wrong the last time they fought before he went off to war? Or worrying about what she’s going to wear when she meets him at the airport.

Yes it is good that she feels bad and sorry about what she said!
Yes important that she makes herself look pretty for him!
But its also really really dumb (sorry ladies but its true).

So he walks out of the terminal and as he gets close enough she starts crying and saying “sorry about …..” and he says “about what” and shuts her up by putting a finger on her lips silencing her then he kisses her really hard. When he pulls back she’s flustered and starts trying to fix her hair and is complaining that he  (He) surprised her and she couldn’t find anything to wear and … Another kiss silences her again. And he(He) says to her,  “You are so beautiful to me right now I’ll never forget this moment for the rest of my life. Right now you look so beautiful to me I’m dying a little every time I look at you cause my heart stops a moment each time.”

Why would he say that to her.

Simple. Love remembers no record of past wrong. Is patient. Kind. Enduring. Gentle. Hopes all things. Endures all things. Seeks not its own way. Always chases after the truth. ….and the truth of the matter is God loves us so lavishly…that He tends to forget that we did anything wrong.  God has “sin Alzheimer’s”.

The same way this husband in the story while dodging bullets while away at war can’t remember whatever it is she said that was so wrong. All he was thinking all that time was that he wants to get back to her. And that he loves her. While all that time at home his wife was killing herself with guilt and shame. We’re that wife. What a waste.

True confession doesn’t PRODUCE SHAME it produces rebirth. Selfish confession is based on guilt and shame that you hang on to even after you say sorry. Its about you not about getting right with god. Your sins have separated you. How sad. When all the husband cares about is seeing her again. All he cares about is holding her again. That husband is God. There are Christians in this world who are just beginning to really understand God and they are experiencing that kind of love. The kind of love that EMPOWERS them to come as you are.  That love that breaks down walls and barriers. That loves that amazes away your strongholds. That love that melts the chains that bind you in cherished sins. That love that brings worship into your heart DURING your confession. Youcan’t even begin to describe what it feels like to be UNDESERVEDLY vindicated!

That love doesn’t make them walk slowly up to God. They are experiencing God’s love in such a way that when their sins make them feel dirty they don’t wait in the back of the line, they run ahead of everyone else and throw themselves into his arms. With relieving heartbreak mixed with missing God heartache. I don’t know. Maybe like Mary Magdelene, who anointed Jesus’ feet with oil after all the mess He repeatedly had to save her from, maybe on serious sinners understand what I’m saying. Pious people don’t get Mary. Good people don’t understand Mary. Yet can you see how bold she was? Demoniac?! Prostitute?! Daring to kiss His forehead and anoit Christ’s hair and feet and dry them with her hair. Filthy and dregs of the society some would call her. But she was SO BOLD. She so bold she sad sorry with creative abandon! She turned her sorry into a praise and worship session. Man comeone. Most of us aren’t even serious when we say sorry! That’s someone who is truly repentant. Not caring. Who was there, what was said. Just single-mindedly focused on putting herself in front of God and saying sorry with tears and confession with anointing oil and repenting with kisses.
You cant kiss God’s head or wipe the feet of the King of the universe from waaaayyyyy over theeeerrrreeeee far away.

That’s the real mistake the woman the wife in this story made. Feeling sorry wasn’t wrong. Wanting to say sorry wasn’t wrong. It was the fact that she underestimated her husbands love for her. She was wrong because she, WHO SHOULD HAVE KNOWN HIM BETTER, didn’t really know her husbands love as intimately and as deeply as she should. She should have known that in his (His) heart was this burning desire to pick her up and twirl her around the second he could grab her. All the while roaring with laughter and relief and weeping shamelessly for joy.

Her mistake is that the moment she heard he was back she didn’t jump into her car abd break speed limits to get to the airport AS SHE WAS, when she found out. Pyjamas and rollers in her hair and all! Breathless! Excited! Fidgety! Crazy. Out of her mind with happiness. Giggling silly like a little girl.

Her mistake was not waiting for to stretch his arms before she threw herself on him literally.

Again you and I are this woman. The bride of ephesians 5 whose husband is Christ who cleanses her and presents her faultless. And God is this husband.
It truly saddens me that people don’t understand alteast this part of God. This is the same attitude that makes people think they cant come to church when they’ve messed up.

It’s the same home killing theology that keeps kids from telling their parents of their mistakes because they live under this Law of “First thing I have to do is get right with God”. Or I id something so bad that I cant tell my parents.Theyd kill me.

Some of you have children right now suffering in hurtful silence right now because you’ve taught them that your love has limits. They cant differentiate between the moral standards (check list or grades) you were trying to teach them and the long-suffering impossibly-enduring, gently-compassionate grace that love in your household should be. Parents especially, if you’re not careful. They WILL find consolation in someone else’s arms. And you might lose them forever. And I’m not even talking about relationships like with a boyfriend or girlfriend. Actually the last thing you want. Or the worst thing you’d ever suffer as a parent. If you’re harsh with your love but you honestly truly love them…is to lose their hearts to another father-figure or mother-figure that they can run to and find understanding. Then you’re in trouble. When they find true compassionate empathetic sympathetic understanding with some other rolemodel or authority figure you may have lost them forever. And whats worse you may have warped their picture of God forever especially if you’re the same parent who they cant run to when they do wrong and are also the one supposedly trying to teach them about grace. Oh…woe is you!

On a side note is this how we’re loving our partners? Does your husband care more about the sorry than about loving you till you heal? Does your boyfriend know that by every moment he’s angry with you, and even if rightly so over something you did wrong, that he’s hurting you. Cause your carrying guilt and pain? Girls, wives, do you know your hurting him, crushing him by leaving him with his guilt? Did you know that its not enough to to say I forgive. If you want heavenly love during your earthly life, you must push beyond that and love lavishly TOGETHER with the I forgive you. The two go hand in hand.

God only ever asked that the first thing you do is believe that He died for you and that He loved you in ADVANCE of your being alive let alone in advance of your sins!

Lets end this way. Lets be honest.

If we looked at our partners like this.
If we looked at God like this when would ever be afraid to approach him.
Even if we’re wrong.
Lets be honest, don’t you want a partner who treats you like that?

If we really believed God loved us unconditionally like this, half the sins we commit we wouldn’t commit. Because real fear of God is empowering. Your mind would be so convinced that God loves you so hard, it would KILL YOU, to do some of the things you do wrong. SO YOU COULDN’T DO THEM!

In other words Gods love would blow your mind so hard it would freak you out!!!
In fact, just like the cliché saying “oh My God! – OMG”. The moment you did something wrong, you would say OMG! And then lickety-split! flee into His arms WHAM!, and bury your face into His chest and blurt out weeping with your sorries while he hugs you really tight.

Not from waaaaaaayyyy over there like most of us do. Isn’t that right? We stand way over theeeeeeeerrrrrreee. And we go through our confession mantra and using our spiritul prayer beads we number all the things we do wrong. Yet all the time, God waaaaaayyyyyy back over on his throne has been holding out his hands till he got tired. Now he’s just had to let them drop and his chin is on his hand, waiting impatiently for you to finish.

If we really believed that our partners loved us like this, half the things we do wrong we wouldn’t do. Because it would kill you to hurt them!

– a slight digression… is that the kind of relationship you’re in? Is that how he loves you? Is this how she treats you? If you’re already married and you’re not like this..then pray hard and or go for counseling.  Yes I just said that. Yes you continue counseling while you’re married even if its not formal. Look at us, the most important relationship in our lives and we half-step on it. Yet insurance tells you go for a checkup every year and  you’re fanatical with that thing like clock work. You can count calories but you can’t take 1 hour out of the year to get an objective temperature check on the most important relationship in your life? You you’re your banker on a regular basis to check your investments you don’t your taxes every year requiring the analytical specliast attention of a professional to look into your private affairs but can’t see one of your best friends and sit with them and chat about your marriage?  What its private? What its no ones business but yours? What someone outside cant tell you how to run your private life? Very funny. With that kind of attitude I wonder if you’re really happy in the first place. Sounds to me like you’re afraid of what will come out and potentially that you might not be able to fix it!We’re laughable. Hey but he’s not married, what right does he….how can he tell me how to run my….. I read people! And I listen. And I watch. And I learn and I pray for more than just the mediocre and I’m getting all the advice and help I can get. The odds against happiness are so stacked against us in this generation of finding fulfilling God-blessed happiness and spiritual acclaim and reknown and prosperity and success all rolled into one that we’ve compromised and settled for less on ALL COUNTS. I’m sorry I’m not with you. I’m praying my life reads like a novel so some people can believe in the impossible from God. Its not even about me. I’m just heart broken over the commonness of broken dreams and small hope living in this generation. SO I fight it every chance I get.

If you’re not married and he doesn’t treat you like that, or she doesn’t think this way…why are you with them? Go on then. Settle for mediocre. And very likely later divorce. Where you might not physically be separated but you could be in the same house and same bed but not in the same spirit or same heart. God promised the too shall be one. If you’re not in a relatipnship where when he hurts you he hurts himself. Or when she abuses you she abuses herself. Then you’re in something that’s not Biblical, or promised or even Godly. You’re in something of your own human manufacture. Where do I get that? Ephesians 5. See I told you I read. What does it say, a man who truly loves you loves you as himself, he treats you the one he treats his own body. Maybe you’re stuck with a guy who doenst know himself or know how to treat himself or take care of himself well then. Or maybe you’re stuck with a girl who doesn’t understand how divine, how royal how queenly how liberating submission (being taken care of, interceded for, protected, burtured, cleansed) is? (More ephesians 4 and 5.

Maybe its your calling some of you. But some of you are being spoken to by God right now in this email to take the miracle He’s handing out to you for mahala. Some of you on the other hand are being asked to get out while you can. Some of you may be called to teach you’re partner about love. Some of you maybe receiving such love but be unable able to handle or reciprocate it. Theres no simple answer to the variety of situations. You need to fast and pray. You need the Holy Spirit.

Others are being asked if today is the day they wanna get saved maybe for real for the first time in their lives. From themselves and their attitude.

Others are being asked to repent and say sorry to God about how they’ve underestimated the meaning of love. Like me.

Lemme end with the below. The Bible always says it better. The Holy Spirit is the greatest author. Ask Him what He meant to say through the below to you and me.

Psalm 38:2-4Psalm 38:2-4
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2 For Your arrows pierce me deeply, And Your hand presses me down.  3 There is no soundness in my flesh. Because of Your anger, Nor any health in my bones. Because of my sin. 4 For my iniquities have gone over my head; Like a heavy burden they are too heavy for me

Psalm 90:8Psalm 90:8
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8 You have set our iniquities before You, Our secret sins in the light of Your countenance.

Isaiah 43:24-26Isaiah 43:24-26
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24 You have bought Me no sweet cane with money, Nor have you satisfied Me with the fat of your sacrifices;  But you have burdened Me with your sins, You have wearied Me with your iniquities. 25 “ I, even I, am He who blots out your transgressions for My own sake; And I will not remember your sins.  Put Me in remembrance; Let us contend together; State your case, that you may be acquitted.

Micah 7:8,9,18-19Micah 7:8,9,18-19
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Israel’s Confession and Comfort
8  Do not rejoice over me, my enemy;   When I fall, I will arise;
When I sit in darkness,   The LORD will be a light to me.
9  I will bear the indignation of the LORD,  Because I have sinned against Him,
Until He pleads my case  And executes justice for me.
He will bring me forth to the light;   I will see His righteousness.

18  Who is a God like You, Pardoning iniquity   And passing over the transgression of the remnant of His heritage?  He does not retain His anger forever,  Because He delights in mercy.
19  He will again have compassion on us,  And will subdue our iniquities.

Simple prayer

Father forgive us for just one thing.
That we don’t know You like we should.
Help us with that piece. Help us glorify you in a generation of dying hope and shallow love.
Give us the faith of Christ.
In Jesus name, Amen.

Shalom to you,  your relationships, your heart, your mind, your body, your ambitions, your desires, your hopes, your hurts, your aches, you family, your bloodline until He comes again

Occupy in all areas of your life until He returns.