Step 5 "We admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs."
James 5:16 - "Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results."
There is a story in Luke 15:11-32 that you should read. It's a story of forgiveness, a parable of the prodigal son. The story is about a man who sins against his father and obviously before God, realizes his wrongdoing, and confess his sin. It shows what true forgiveness is about and how rewarding it can be. I really believe that step 5 is designed to free us from the binding effects sin has on our life and is not designed to be for the other party involved, although as you can see in the parable it is healthy for both parties.
Keeping a clear or clean conscious is a good idea! Confession and prayer, making your wrongs right with God and the person you've wronged is healthy, and just makes doing the right thing easier and more important. If we never confess our wrongs and we just stuff them out of sight out of mind it has the opposite effect. I've proven it in my own life many times. Check this out. Hunter, if Faith was wearing a pretty white t-shirt, brand new and clean, and something happened to stain the t-shirt, lets say she dropped spaghetti all down the front of it and wiped her spaghetti sauce lips on her sleeve. Would that t-shirt be pretty, white, and clean anymore? Well no! So it would be easier to justify going out and playing hide and seek in that shirt and getting it even dirtier, right? But if she didn't have spaghetti stains on her t-shirt before you guys went out to play and get dirty, you would probably be like "Uh, Faith, Don't you think you should change your clothes so you don't get your new shirt dirty." She'd be like, "Oh yeah, good idea Hunter." Right, just makes sense!
The same is true with sin in life. The cleaner we keep our conscious the more we do good and the more we want to keep that conscious clean. But if we let it get soiled by not admitting to ourselves, to God, and another human being the exact nature of our wrongs the easier it is to just keep doing dirt or spaghetti sauce or whatever. You get it?
So when you screw up for whatever reason, make it right! It will make your life much easier and give you much more confidence and ambition to keep doing the right thing. That's part of what God wants for us to do in our lives so that He can show His love through us. It's not so easy for his light to shine through us if we are not all cleaned up! Does that make sense?!?
Prayer: Father God, I know that you are faithful and I know that if I faithfully confess my sins to you, to another person, and to myself you will create in me a clean heart, renew a right spirit within me. That you will not cast me away from your presence and for that your Holy Spirit will always be with me. So God, for that please restore to me the joy of your salvation and uphold me with a willing spirit. Amen.
Random thought: There is a story or saying in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous that says "half measures availed us nothing". I'm pretty sure that means if we take any of those guide lines that A.A. or God have given us to live by and try to put our own little twist to them, we are going to fail. I've been to 13 treatment centers in my life. I'm 42 years old, been to prison 3 times now, and been locked up for short periods many times. I've easily spent 6 or 7 years total locked up. That's a little over 15% of my life and it didn't get started til I was 16. So I've had plenty of time to learn a few things and experience exactly what "half measures will get you." I've tried to do it many different ways and it never works out. So why wouldn't I just give up trying and do it the right way, the way that has been proven to work, the way that our creator put down in English for arrogant people like me to read and follow so that my life could be a little less like it is today! "Aggghhh Charlie Brown." Who knows why I've been stupid and proud, a do it myself-er. But I'm learning now that it is much easier just to follow the instructions when you get ready to do anything at all. You all have heard me say read, pray, and turn from sin. Also, surround yourself with others doing the same! I firmly believe that if you break it down as far as you can, we will find that together all those 4 things can save us from a whole lot of screwing up! But they will work best if used wholeheartedly and not with half measures.
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