Confession Brings Healing

I was six years old, but I can remember like it was yesterday. I had been reading a book from my 1st grade teacher's "special" shelf. It was a big book with chapters. To this day I can't tell you what it was about, because quite frankly I didn't like it, and I didn't finish it. However, that didn't stop me from making up the end of the story when my teacher asked me how the book ended. I was more concerned that she believe I'd actually finished the book than I was about whether or not she'd probably read the book and already knew how it ended.
One night when my mother came to tuck us in for bed, I asked her-hypothetically, of course-the question that had been plaguing me for weeks, "If someone lies to someone else, do they have to tell that person, or can they just tell God?" I don't remember what my mother told me, but I do remember scheduling a time where I could go tell my teacher that I had lied to her. What a feeling of relief swept over me when I'd finally "...confessed my faults one to another (James 5:16)." I had told God countless times, yet relief, peace, and healing came when I confessed to my teacher.
God was preparing my little heart at age six for a huge truth I wouldn't come to understand until I was 33! The truth that AFTER the cross, confession of sins is to each other. AT the cross, my sins were forgiven once and for all!
Confession to one another allows relationships to be mended, private sin struggles to lose potency, and addictions to lose power. Hurts, habits, and hangups become distant memories that only remind us of God's grace, mercy, and power in our lives.
May your healing begin today.

~Rebecca Phillips

Vacation Time!

Well, folks, summer vacations are over. By now, we are all back in school—if we go to school—and with Labor Day in the past, we can effectively say good-bye to summer. Still, if you know me at all, you know I don’t easily let go of the sunshine and flowers. Until the autumnal equinox comes in a couple of weeks, it will officially be summer, and I’m going to enjoy it!  

I’m also remembering some advice I read many years ago—advice that helps me avoid stressing out when the days get so very busy. The advice was this: Learn to give yourself “mini vacations” throughout the day. Yes, the weeks at the beach are over, but that doesn’t mean I can’t take a seat on a sunny bench for a few minutes while I fill out those forms. I can take my lunch out to a quiet spot and enjoy the gentle breeze and birdsong of a late-summer day. I can put on some music and dance around in my kitchen before I get to the business of cooking supper.

A couple of weeks ago, my memory work was in Hebrews 4: 9-16. The passage begins, “There remains therefore a rest for the people of God. For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his own works as God did from His.”  God did not get tired, so He didn’t need to rest in that sense. But he sat back and reflected, I believe; He enjoyed the work He had completed.  And he gave us a model. We need to rest, to stop pushing and striving and enjoy what has already been done.

A hymn by Jean Sophia Pigott says, “Jesus, I am resting, resting/In the joy of what Thou art;/I am finding out the greatness/Of thy loving heart.” The second verse is even better: “Simply trusting Thee, Lord Jesus/I behold Thee as Thou art/ And Thy love, so pure, so changeless/Satisfies my heart.”

God in His wisdom gave us a day to rest, to lounge in the hammock and read a good book. Even more meaningful, He shows us that our salvation is not dependent upon ourselves, that Jesus is the one who already completed the work of satisfying God’s requirement for sin. The idea of resting is a rich one that I am still learning, but all along the way, I’m thankful for each part of the lesson as God reveals his ways to me.

Have a great week, y’all, and don’t forget to take a few vacations!

 --Sherry Poff