I recently read a devotional from A.W. Tozer titled: “The Fallacy of Secret Sin” that briefly explains how secret sin can be damaging toward God, toward self and toward society.
This morning John MacArthur’s devotional titled: “Receiving the Word in Purity” talks about how we should never presume God’s grace on us if we refuse to confess all our sins, and how neglecting to put-off all presumptuous [deliberate] sins in our life can hinder our spiritual growth in His Word.
Both devotionals teaches us that secret and unconfessed sin is damaging to our Christian walk. We may convince ourselves that we are “okay” and on that straight and narrow path to Heaven, but if there is any unconfessed or secret sin in our lives we are only living a delusion.
Through Jesus Christ we do have the capacity to set sin aside and receive God’s Word. However it is not done by simply “believing” we can do it, that’s just a lie from the Word Faith, Positive Confession, Seeker-Friendly, Pragmatic movements; nor is it done through church attendance, emotional worship, fellowship and superficial kindness and joy; rather to put-off all presumptuous [deliberate] sin must be done through continually purifying our lives through confession of sin, repentance, and right choices. But remember, when we repent and confess of these sins we must turn-away from it as well. Repentance without any change in our lives is nothing but superficial religiosity.
Whether we are concealing immorality, hate, bitterness, jealousy, extreme addictions, self-want, or even refusing to listen to counsel and stop our support of falsehood, whatever our secret and unconfessed sins are we need to repent of it today and pray to Christ for the strength to remove it from our lives. If we refuse and can somehow convince ourselves that God’s grace is sufficient even with these hidden sins then sadly our Christian life is nothing but a figment of our own imagination.
I pray we can all echo the words from the Psalmist when he said:
“…keep back Your servant from presumptuous sins; Let them not rule over me; Then I will be blameless, And I shall be acquitted of great transgression.” (Psalm 19:13)
“Establish my footsteps in Your word, And do not let any iniquity have dominion over me.” (Psalm 119:133)
In Christ,
Marc
1 Thess. 5:21 