ChosenRebel's Blog

Meditating on 1 John 1

John 1:8-10 (ESV)
8 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
10 If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

All my sin, all my failures, as a son, a brother, a friend, a husband, a father, a pastor, a teacher, a coach, a mentor, a counselor, . . .

. . . all the ways that I have failed to be what I urged others to be, failed to live up to my own words, let alone all of the myriad ways I have failed to live up to the standards of God —all the wretched thoughts filled with pride, and lust, and revenge, and bitterness, and resentment, all the putrid, selfish, wicked, refuse of my life, all the raw open sewage of my life that no one except God knows, . . . 

. . . is forgiven in Christ when we recognize the bad news (I am a wretched sinner, rightly condemned by God and powerless to save myself) and the good news (but God made a way for me to be forgiven by placing all of my sin on Jesus, punishing him with the death I deserved and raising him from the grave so that I could be forgiven and raised up to newness of life with him.

Is this not glorious and transformative truth?