What does repentance feel like? How would you describe it?
I wish we were all sitting in the same room and could share our responses with one other because I'm sure the answers would all be as different as each of us and yet, would they? Does repentance feel the same way to you as it does to me?
The reason I ask is because I was focusing on my prayer life again in my devotions this morning, and spent some time considering repentance of sin in light of Psalm 32. Why don't you turn there and read it through before we begin....
We start out in verses 1 & 2 with a joyful proclamation,
"Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile."
This whole psalm is a celebration of forgiveness. It is a description of the person who receives God's forgiveness, a picture of how repentance feels to the saint. It is also a description of the misery sin brings when not dealt with... How did David describe what it felt like in his spirit when he had unconfessed sin in his life? Verses 3 & 4 tell us:
"When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long. For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the drought of summer. Selah."
Notice the very last word above - "selah". That means "meditate upon this". God wants us to meditate on what David has just told you and I about life without repentance. Here David is giving us his personal testimony of the weight of conviction upon his sin-laden heart... What would your testimony be? Isn't this a perfect description of how it feels when you keep silence before the Lord in regard to your sins? You literally just dry up inside, don't you? You're miserable and you can't sleep... You can't seem to shake the symptoms of what feels like a real bad flu! Today there are many Christians walking around with all kinds of aches and pains and nausea. Don't you think it could possibly be a result of not repenting in some areas of their lives?? Could those night sweats and that heavy pressure upon your chest be evidence that you are running from God, wrestling with repentance? Yes ladies, there are physical effects to not confessing our sins, so don't be quick to rule out the spiritual side of things when you aren't feeling so well! Oh, you can TRY to cover up the symptoms with pills, but what really might be necessary is to swallow that pill of repentance!
Mark 2:17, "When Jesus heard it, he saith unto them, They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance."
What was David's response to the "heavy hand" of the Lord? To me it sounds like he wrestled with it for quite a while, for scripture says, "day and night thy hand was heavy upon me." Do you wrestle for long periods of time with repenting of your sins when you know full well that is exactly what you need to do? Why would we choose to torment ourselves and neglect such beneficial behavior? Why won't we take the right medicine?? What would cause us to want to continue on with our bones waxing old through our roaring all the day long?! And ladies, we do roar don't we, when there is unconfessed sin in our lives! We snap and growl outside, because we are battling inside of ourselves with this matter of unconfessed sin. We take it to bed with us and try to sleep with it and find out that we can't. We wake up with it and try to get through another day without taking care of our sin only to find we can't do it and enjoy life at the same time. We must be crazy to choose such a life of misery!
How good God is to us to keep His hand upon us even when we hold onto our sins, amen? It's because He loves us so much that He won't remove the pressure in our lives till we repent. What kinds of things prevent you and I from confessing known sin in our lives? Why do we choose to hold back and ignore our sins when all we are going to receive through confession is His blessed forgiveness by doing so?!!! What can we possibly gain by hiding or holding on to them? We can only hurt ourselves.....and others! I think David finally realized this truth as verse 5 testifies of his confession:
"I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin. Selah."
Once again that little word is attached at the end of the verse - "selah". Once again God is commanding us to meditate upon what David just said in regard to confessing his sin. Ladies, the Lord wants us to follow David's example! As you read this verse, confession really doesn't sound so hard to do. In fact, it sounds pretty good!! David simply admitted his sin to the Lord. It's sad to think about the many people who still believe they must confess their sins to a particular man. The Bible clearly says all we have to do is take our sins to THE LORD to find forgiveness! Therefore we must do our part and go first, then God promises to do His part and forgive...
2 Chron. 7:14, "If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land."
To acknowledge your sin is to bring it out of hiding. It is bringing it out into the open before a holy, righteous God who has already seen it and yes, name it! Call your sin what it is dear lady, don't give it some fancy, worldly title. If you're a drug addict, say so - don't call yourself a "substance abuser". If you've been living with someone while unmarried, call it what it is - you're a fornicator. If you've been cheating on your husband, it's not an "extramarital affair" you've been having - you're an adulteress! You see ladies, part of repenting is admitting what we are, amen? We need to humbly bring our sin into God's presence ourselves and seek His forgiveness, name it and then turn from it, repent! If you finally call your sin what it is, perhaps you won't keep going back to it, amen? So often we pray, "Lord forgive me of my sins" and we don't specifically name our sin because we don't like the sound of it! Let's stop praying self-righteously in regard to our own sin... As a matter of fact, it proves we're still wrestling with real repentance and not really sincere!
Psalm 32:5 gives us assurance that in doing so, we too, can find the same forgiveness that David found.... That verse says, "and thou forgavest...." Praise God! I wish we were as quick to forgive, amen? Scripture didn't say, "and God beat him..." or "and God told him to wait..." or "and God said NO!" We are promised that if we confess, He is faithful and just to forgive!! That is the response of a loving heavenly Father! What a blessing and benefit to our souls it is to receive forgiveness...
2 Cor. 7:11, "For behold this selfsame thing, that ye sorrowed after a godly sort, what carefulness it wrought in you, yea, what clearing of yourselves, yea, what indignation, yea, what fear, yea, what vehement desire, yea, what zeal, yea, what revenge! In all things ye have approved yourselves to be clear in this matter."
In looking now at verses 6 & 7 of Psalm 32, what conclusion do we see David drawing from his experience with repentance?
"For this shall every one that is godly pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be found:"
What time is this that David is referring to in which we should pray unto the Lord? Turn with me to Psalm 95: 7 & 8 which will provide us the answer...
"...Today if ye will hear his voice, harden not your heart..."
TODAY...right now - is always God's perfect time for confession. You see, David made a commitment in Psalm 32:5 saying that he WILL confess his transgressions. He's not putting it off anymore, he's breaking that old habit of his. Through sin's misery he learned to make a commitment to confess his sins right away and not wrestle with repentance like he had in the past. As soon as you are convicted of your sin ladies, RIGHT THEN is the time to confess and forsake it! Don't put it off for even a second, for that is a second longer than God would be pleased with! Many times in church during the preaching of God's Word the message will convict me of sin in one particular area or another. I do not wait until the end of the preaching to confess my sins at the altar - I do it immediately - right there in my seat! I do that because I'm afraid the devil will cause me to forget by the end of service... I also do that because I want the rest of the message to fall fresh on a clean heart so that I might retain properly the remainder of what is being preached. By the end of the service, I am ready to pray with someone else if necessary or just pray for others at the altar because I've cleaned myself up throughout the whole service! To put off confessing your sin is to harden your own heart. Ladies, you don't have to wait till you get to church, you don't have to wait till you get to the altar, or even wait till before you go to bed to pray in order to confess your sins. TODAY if you will hear! There is a big IF included in that verse though... IF you will hear... Will you hear?? Are you listening for conviction dear lady? If not, you need to be! Our hearts and minds need to continually be open to conviction from the Holy Spirit of God. We ought to be as ready for conviction as God is to forgive our sins, amen?
As we finish reading Psalm 32, we find all sorts of wonderful things occur to David upon his confession of his sins. Prior, he lacked understanding of certain truths about the Lord and himself. He didn't think right. Verse 7 shows David now realizing that the Lord is his hiding place. Could that mean that one of the reasons he didn't confess his sins in the first place is because he himself was his own hiding place?? We are guilty of that very same thing in our lives today. We decide that we are going to protect ourselves, to look out for ourselves, not realizing that we are trusting in ourselves as our own hiding place! Ladies, we don't take our troubles and sins to God when we think like that. We can't keep ourselves from trouble, nor deliver ourselves out of trouble when it comes - only God can! Have you truly placed yourself in the hand of the Lord? Have you truly rested upon Him for instruction, for guidance and protection? Are you resting in Him for forgiveness today?
Verse 9 is David's advice to us given in light of this new understanding of himself. He is saying to us,
"Be ye not as the horse, or as the mule, which have no understanding: whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle, lest they come near unto thee."
David is encouraging you and I not to make the same mistake he did - the mistake of being stubborn! Are you stubborn today dear lady? Are you resisting repentance? Do you refuse to look at your sin for what it is, to name it before the Lord who has seen it all along? Are you unwilling to forsake what He has shown you is wrong? Do not harden your heart in stubbornness....
Verse 10 is David's further explanation of his realization upon confession. He realized, as we also need to, that to keep back your sins only brings sorrow, but to put your trust in the Lord shall bring mercy all around you, in every area of your life! What a blessing! What joy! How much sweeter to sleep under the blanket of mercy, than upon the hardened pillow of sin's misery...
Verse 11 says, "Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, ye righteous: and shout for joy, all ye that are upright in heart."
Who is it that is upright in heart? Go back to verse one of this psalm for the answer, "Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered." That is who is upright, the one who has had his sins forgiven. Ladies, confessing your sins gets things flowing within you again! It brings back the power of God, the filling of the Holy Spirit that was quenched and grieved prior to your confession. Your once brittle bones will function in a lubricated fashion again as you are revived to serve the Lord again, having found God's forgiveness.
In closing, is there anything you need to confess to the Lord, a besetting sin you need to repent of once and for all? Have you heard His voice today, felt His hand heavy upon you in a certain area of your life for sometime now? Are you tired of not sleeping for being convicted of something you've not yet let go of? Harden not your heart! Remember David's feelings of unconfessed sin and contrast them with the feelings he experienced after repentance... Which would you enjoy more? Which is easier to live with? Which is right?! May you be encouraged to do right TODAY - and every day - based on God's faithfulness to forgive your sins when you bring them to Him and confess them. All the while you've been wrestling, He's been waiting.....
God Bless,
Pam
Isaiah 60:1&2
Copyright 2000
Pamela A. Iannello
