The great, preacher teacher, Oswald Chambers, said, “If I have a lingering thought of defending myself I haven’t truly repented of the sin.”
Indeed, we prevent our own freedom when we try to excuse or explain away that which God calls sin.
It’s human nature to want to do so. But we are missing freedom when we do this.
As John the Baptist baptized thousands from Jerusalem, all Judea and all the region around Jordan, they were baptized by him “confessing their sins”. (Matt 3)
Did they confess what they had done out loud for all to hear?
Was their freedom that freeing?
I think it was.
But then the Pharisees and the Sadducees came and John rebuked them as “brood of vipers!”
Their heritage, their rule following, their outward appearance, surface-level righteousness could do nothing to cleanse them from their sin.
Oswald Chambers describes true repentance as a feeling of “inexpressible unworthiness”—and this seems so counter to the contemporary “feel good about yourself”, motivational-speech preaching that many are drawn to today.
But can we ever really find freedom from sin and true peace when our eyes are on ourselves ?
Jen Wilken notes, “We’re so often consumed with the wrong identity questions, enthralled by the wrong “I am” statements, clinging to an anti-Christian hope that self-doubt and self-loathing are cured by self-discovery. We need songs (and sermons and books) that revere a Better Object.”
We desperately need to turn our eyes away from ourselves, away from our sin, and look squarely at our Savior—the Better Object.
As we sit with Him in prayer as we study His Word, we learn to trust Him, we adore Him and, when compared to Him, sin loses its attractiveness and power over us. Haven’t you seen this to be true?
The more we focus, not on ourselves, or even our sin, but on the Better Object —the more we understand His great love for us, the more we become aware of our unworthiness, and the more we walk in the POWER of gratitude.
THAT gratitude, realizing our own unworthiness, THAT kind of focus on His love for us, is where we refute sin that once so easily entangled us and walk in His better ways and joyful, true freedom!
Oh friend, turn your eyes upon Jesus….
“O soul, are you weary and troubled?
No light in the darkness you see?
There’s light for a look at the Savior,
And life more abundant and free.
Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His glory and grace.
Through death into life everlasting
He passed, and we follow Him there;
O’er us sin no more hath dominion
For more than conqu’rors we are!
His Word shall not fail you, He promised;
Believe Him and all will be well;
Then go to a world that is dying,
His perfect salvation to tell!”
— lyrics by Helen Lemmel
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