What should we do when we sin? Part 3

David W Palmer

(Hebrews 4:14–16 DKJV) “Seeing then that we have a great high priest, who is passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us [keep on] holding tenaciously to our confession”

(Acts 20:32 EMTV) So for the present, I entrust you, brothers, to God and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who have been sanctified.

Once we have admitted and confessed our sins, transgressions, and iniquities, we need to confess what God says about us and about our state of righteousness and holiness in Him. Below, I have listed some examples of confessions you can make at God’s throne and the Scriptures they come from:

Confessions about ourselves:

Rom. 6:14 Sin shall not dominate me!

Rom. 8:37 In all these things I am more than a conqueror through him that loves me.

Col. 1:22 Through His death, Jesus presented me holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight.

2 Cor. 5:21 I am the righteousness of God in Him.

Eph. 4:24 I have put on the new man, which God has created to be like him in true righteousness and holiness!

1 Cor 10:13 God is faithful, who will not suffer me to be tempted above what I am able; but with the temptation will also make a way to escape that I can bear it!

Jude 24 He is able to keep me from falling, and to present me faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy!

Eph. 4:32 I forgive all others as God in Christ forgave me

Phil 4:13 I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

Phil 4:19 But my God shall supply all my need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.

2 Cor. 2:14 He always causes me to triumph in Christ!

2 Cor. 3:6 He has made me an able minister of the new covenant.

Confessions about other people:

2 Cor. 5:16 From now on, I know no man after the flesh!

2 Cor. 5:17 If any man is in Christ Jesus, he is a new creature!

1 John 3:9 Whoever is born of God does not commit sin!

1 Peter 2:24 By whose stripes they were healed!

Confessions about prayer:

John 14:13 Whatever I ask in Jesus Name, he will do it!

John 16:23 Whatever I ask the Father in Jesus’s name, he will give me!

Mark 11:23,24 What things soever I desire when I pray, I believe I receive them and I shall have them!

The last three promises restate what Jesus said God will do when we pray. In addition to confessing these promises, we need to think about what we confess after we have prayed. Do we confess that we are receiving what we have asked for—as Jesus said we would? Or do we still speak as though we have not received it? This is very important; if we do not speak and live after prayer as though we received it when we prayed, we are showing distrust to Jesus; we are calling him a liar. So when you pray, please consider Jesus (Heb. 3:1).

Note also—regarding the three confessions about prayer—that asking in Jesus’s name is asking what he wants us to ask. That is, asking according to what is clearly written in his word, or asking what he is telling us to ask—as revealed to us by the Holy Spirit. In the first passage, asking in Jesus’s name is quoting word for word what the Holy Spirit reveals to us to say to demons, things, weather, or sickness. In the second scripture, we are to ask the Father what Jesus, via the Holy Spirit, shows us to ask.

(Proverbs 20:9 NKJV) “Who can say, ‘I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin?’”

Remember, you cannot cleanse yourself from your own sin. You may feel like a failure when you miss the mark; you may think that you have let God down when you discover an area of your life that hasn’t yet received the power to resist sin. But, we must never be so proud as to think we can fix our own sin problem through self-pity, self-punishment, or self-effort. We need humbly to acknowledge that we cannot cleanse ourselves from offence, let alone empower ourselves to stay free of sin. This is where humble repentance comes in. We need humbly to repent (change our mind about what we are doing), then to come boldly to God’s throne. There, we can receive forgiveness (mercy), and find the grace we need to empower us for holy living. This is the only means to Sweatless Holiness.

Let’s focus on learning and saying confessions based on God’s word. Begin with the one’s above if you don’t already know them.