In the modern era, it seems we're far too often discouraged to do the hard work of objective self-examination, taking inventory of our sins & needs, etc. We're told (by well-meaning folk, I believe), "Don't be too hard on yourself," We're told not to focus on the negative. While I believe most of the time these directives are in earnest, they are not altogether *best*. We do not want to drive ourselves to despair, and -yet- a part of the Christian life is owning God's chastisement of us, confessing that He has walked contrary to us because we've walked contrary to Him (see Leviticus 26 throughout, but explicitly vv. 40-41).
Instead of being roadblocks to our happiness, rightly taken up, they will usher us to liberty, having hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience (and, one, that is self-inflicted). The Lord hears our cries, our self-loathing (of the righteous sort), and it is a kindness for eyes to be opened to our condition. He would have us, as Achan did with Joshua, give a free and full confession, as painful as it may be to learn the reality of what we are in ourselves, apart from Christ. The beauty, however, is found in that from this self-examination comes:
Are there many things more liberating than being freed from the guilt of an evil conscience, self-inflicted, deserved, and earned? Would we be free from our sins, and from that haunting weight of knowing what we deserve? Would we love Jesus Christ and seek to be like Him more and more? Then, Beloved, this counterintuitive way prescribed by our perfect Father in heaven -despised though it be by the world, discouraged by the wicked- is the way to it! Hear these beautiful words of comfort from the Lord about His erring people (Jeremiah 31):
Instead of being roadblocks to our happiness, rightly taken up, they will usher us to liberty, having hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience (and, one, that is self-inflicted). The Lord hears our cries, our self-loathing (of the righteous sort), and it is a kindness for eyes to be opened to our condition. He would have us, as Achan did with Joshua, give a free and full confession, as painful as it may be to learn the reality of what we are in ourselves, apart from Christ. The beauty, however, is found in that from this self-examination comes:
1. The identification of our sins, and our subsequent need of Christ, from which flows
2. The confession of our sins (1 John 1.7-9), through which -when taken up by faith- comes
3. The forgiveness of our sins (and, often, a greater *sense* of that forgiveness), and
4. Subsequent *cleansing* FROM our sins, which will spur us on to
5. New obedience and growth in grace and knowledge
Are there many things more liberating than being freed from the guilt of an evil conscience, self-inflicted, deserved, and earned? Would we be free from our sins, and from that haunting weight of knowing what we deserve? Would we love Jesus Christ and seek to be like Him more and more? Then, Beloved, this counterintuitive way prescribed by our perfect Father in heaven -despised though it be by the world, discouraged by the wicked- is the way to it! Hear these beautiful words of comfort from the Lord about His erring people (Jeremiah 31):
I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself thus,
"Thou hast chastised me, and I was chastised, as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke: Turn thou me, and I shall be turned; for thou art the LORD my God. Surely after that I was turned, I repented; and after that I was instructed, I smote upon my thigh: I was ashamed, yea, even confounded, because I did bear the reproach of my youth."
Is Ephraim my dear son? is he a pleasant child? For since I spake against him, I do earnestly remember him still: Therefore my bowels are troubled for him; I will surely have mercy upon him, saith the LORD.
