Last week, I wrote about the how we must practice the spiritual discipline of accountability. We need to be raw and vulnerable with our brothers and sisters in Christ so that they can encourage and spur us towards holiness. But it is nearly impossible to develop this type of accountability unless we are already disciplining ourselves to examine our hearts, thoughts, and actions and making a regular confession of sin.
I have felt overwhelmed by my sin at times. I try to pray immediately when I recognize sin but some sin is so deeply woven into the pattern of my life that, unless I stop and look at my life in comparison to the holiness of God, I am unlikely to notice some of the systematic sins that I need to be rooting out of my heart.
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Remind Yourself of the Holiness of God
One of the reasons I love using my prayer beads, is because I typically begin by using the first section as a way of praising God for His character. I marvel at His mercy, give thanks for His fatherly compassion, and wonder at His creativity. When I then move onto the next section, the part where I confess my sin, have a different image in my mind of who I am. You can also download a prayer journal here to help with this practice.
No longer am I praying, like the Pharisee in Luke 18, comparing myself to others and thanking God that I am not like the sinners around me, but instead, I am looking at the holy, perfect God and realizing just how fallen I am.
When I compare myself to those in my neighborhood, I might seem merciful. But when instead of fallen humans, I compare my heart to that of God’s, I see that even my greatest efforts at mercy are pathetic.
Read the Prayers of Others
Have you ever listened to a song that you feel like was written just for you? Prayers can be the same way. Other believers have walked this life and allowed the Holy Spirit to work through then to convict their hearts of sin. Reading their prayers and making them your own can be a powerful way to examine your heart.
Valley of Visions: A Collection of Puritan Prayers, has been especially helpful in my life. Each prayer tends to shoot right to the heart of brokenness of our lives as a result of sin but always ends rejoicing in the abundant grace offered freely by God. The psalms and minor prophets also have many examples of times that sin is called out and repented of (or, in the case of the prophets, not repented of) that we can look to as a way to encourage deep examination of our own hearts.
Reading the writings of early Church Fathers and others saints and martyrs who have gone before us also helps us wrestle with the sin in our own life. When I read about the struggles that they vulnerably tell of, I realize that I am not unique amongst believers and am able to recognize that even the heroes of the faith have struggled. When I look at their struggles, when I wrap my heart around the depth of their brokenness and the mighty deeds which God called them to, I am given hope that God will work through me despite my shortcomings.
Utilize Technology
Those of you who have been following along here for awhile know that I love old-fashioned, tangible things. But modern technology does have some advantages and there are several apps that I have found helpful in the process of examining my heart to make a thorough confession of sin.
Confession: A Roman Catholic App has been incredibly helpful to my Protestant faith. It goes through each of the Ten Commandments and highlights the ways one might be violating them in their life (Such as “Have you harbored anger or resentment?” under the 5th Commandment, “Thou Shall Not Kill”). It is very thorough and brought to my attention several ways I was unintentionally conforming to the world instead of allowing my heart to be transformed into the image of Christ.
The New City Catechism app is also helpful in reviewing the commandments given and reminding myself of the holiness of God. This is also an excellent app to use in dedicating yourself to the study of the faith. Bonus: This is a free app!
There are many tools and options to help you engage in this part of your faith. What matters is not whether you use an app with a reminder or prayerfully examine yourself, what matters is that you take time to examine your heart, to realize the depth of your depravity, and to embrace the fullness of the depth of God’s grace.
Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. – Romans 5:20-21, ESV
It is crucial to our pursuit of holiness. We need to dig into the messy areas of our soul that we might not even realize we’ve left untended. But when we confess to one another, we find healing. Healing from the shame of secrecy. Healing from the hurts and confusion that have come from years of suppressing the breakdown caused by the fall. Healing that comes from wondering if we have just too much tucked down inside of us for God to truly love us.
The confession of sin and genuine repentance is so important in our walk with God. I love how you talked about not comparing ourselves to others but mores simply looking to God for what His Word says and how we should be according to that. Keeping our eyes on Him is the most important thing.
Thank you, Angel. It is so important that we keep our eyes focused on our goal, Christ.
It is so important in our faith that we continue to confess our sins to the Lord. It is such an important part of our journey! It is within God’s grace and forgiveness that we can grow and become better versions of ourselves! Absolutely love this!
Amen! It is so life-giving when we can reject our sin and pursue the holiness and forgiveness that God offers.
It’s so true! Some sins are so embedded, like you said, that we really have to dive deep into the murkiness of our hearts to find out some of our sins. Not fun, but incredibly important.
Not fun but oh so freeing once we get through it.
“IF we confess our sins to one another, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us of all unrighteousness.” He is just so so good to take away all of our sin. Thank you for reminding me to call my accountability partner and get “real.” Great post!
Call them! And may you encourage one another deeper into holiness.
Man, that part when you pointed out we should be comparing ourselves to God and not our fellow human beings – that’s so true! We totally do it though to justify ourselves. “Well, I’m not a murderer, so I must be a good person.”
It is so easy to fall into the comparison trap but so important to resist the temptation.
But, do we murder others with the words we say?!! Murdering physically and verbally is just as detrimental to our relationship with Christ.
As we grow closer and closer to Lord we should be grieved by our sin. You are so right that we sometimes get rooted so deep in sin that we are not even aware of. Thank you for sharing this and help others deepen their relationship with the Lord. I am so thankful that he died on the cross for my sins and that through his grace and mercy I can find redemption.
I have found that as I mature as a Christian, I am more acutely aware of my sin. I’m so grateful for God’s mercy and grace in bringing these sins to light and being willing to forgive.
I would never have thought to read someone else’s prayers but I like the idea. Thanks
It is an unexpectedly wonderful way to focus your heart.
Sin is described as “missing the mark” and we will always miss the mark, if we don’t continually confess our sins to each other to Our Father. I’m a Catholic convert from being Protestant and I don’t think confession is talked about enough. I never really understood what it ,want to confess our sins to not just one another, nut Our Lord, until I become Catholic and confess my sins to a priest. I won’t get into a theological debate with anyone who disagrees with where I practice my Christian faith, but I have better understood my relationship with Christ and confessing and asking for forgiveness to those I’ve sinned against, until 7-years ago Easter, when I had my first confession. The thing about confession is no one wants to keep admitting wrong and the same sin popping up every time you confess! It makes me rethink things and realize, well, I really hate talking to Christ about the same sin over and over again, so it makes me have a conscious agreement with myself to really work on what Jesus is asking me to do and that’s “go and sin no more!”.
We also don’t talk about the proper procedure to go talking to someone that has wronged us or hurt our feelings. Most people vent to someone else and I’m guilty of this as a woman! We really need to confront in love to the person who hurt us and talk about it, then gossiping about it to someone else and sinning in retaliation to their sinful hurt. It’s not just missing the mark in our relationship with Christ, but with others. I have a back injury and I still live with my parents in my 30s and even though I’m lawfully an adult, I never grow old enough to not use one of the 10 Commandments and honoring my father and mother or murdering others not necessarily physically, but with my words or facial expressions or body language. All these come into account that our sin misses the mark, in who Christ made us to be, in His image. Sometimes, we need to realize that our confession is what takes away the division between Christ and us and that our aim is way to low for God’s standards.