“If we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.” (1 John 1:9, NLT)
Why does it seem that so often we are powerless to accomplish great things for God? I believe it is because there are barriers that keep us from experiencing God’s power through the Holy Spirit.
I’ve heard that Seattle, Washington is a beautiful place to live. But I’ve also heard that Seattle’s weather can be downright depressing. When the skies are clear, the weather is beautiful. However, fog is common and often dense and it rains 50 percent of the time. It’s actually been recorded that 239 days of the year Seattle is covered by heavy clouds. There are physical barriers that are blocking out the effects of the sun. The sun is there, shining brightly, but the fog and clouds are obscuring it.
I believe that Son Power is also obscured in our lives at times by things that present barriers to our seeing and experiencing that power. One thing that keeps Son Power from operating in our life is sin.
It is important to understand sin and to deal with it. The Bible tells us that God created humans perfect and in his image: “So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27, NLT). God gave Adam and Eve meaningful work to do and told them the only thing they couldn’t do was eat the fruit of one tree, but they decided to take matters into their own hands and, as a result, sin came into the world. You can read all this in Genesis 2 and 3; Adam and Eve’s choice to do things their own way brought sin into our lives as well as their own.
Because of Adam and Eve, all of us have inherited a sinful nature, and it affects every part of us. There is only one person in the history of the world who did not have a sin nature: Jesus Christ. He was the “holy, righteous one” (Acts 3:14, NLT) who “never sinned” (2 Corinthians 5:21, NLT). This allowed Jesus to be sacrificed on the cross as our perfect substitute, “the sinless, spotless Lamb of God” (1 Peter 1:19, NLT). It is through receiving Christ’s sacrifice that we are born again and begin a new life in him: “Anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” (2 Corinthians 5:17, NLT).
The whole idea of sin is very unpopular these days, even in some churches. But the reason Jesus came into the world was to save us from our sins! Sin is alive and well and we must honestly own it and confess it. We cannot expect to experience God’s power in our lives when we choose to sin because sin always short-circuits the work of the Holy Spirit. The prophet Isaiah said, “Listen! The Lord’s arm is not too weak to save you, nor is his ear too deaf to hear you call. It’s your sins that have cut you off from God. Because of your sins, he has turned away and will not listen anymore” (Isaiah 59:1–2, NLT).
Sin manifests itself in all kinds of ways in our lives; pride, envy, self-righteousness, the list goes on and on. The difficulty is in recognizing our sin and confessing it as such. It is important that we learn to detect the voice of the sinful nature. The Holy Spirit takes up residence in each believer and supplies the power we need to overcome the pull of the sin nature within us.
We need to confess our sin to God so our relationship with him can be restored immediately. It is through the confession of our sin that we are telling God that we want to have our relationship with him restored, and it is then that the Holy Spirit will empower us to do God’s work. Be honest with yourself. Are you stuck in a painful past? God’s healing is available to you! Are you stuck in a painful present? God’s power is available to you! Get sin out of the way!
Take time todayto confess your sin to God and begin to experience the Holy Spirit’s power in a new way.
Son Power can be blocked by your sin.