SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 9/7/2024 10:17 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-1 “Confessing”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: 1 John 1:9
Message of the verse: “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
I want to begin with a little story before I dig
into this verse that I suppose that all true believers know by heart. I am getting a procedure that is really hard
to explain, but each one takes an hour as I lay on a raised bed and there are
some things like blood pressure cups that are put onto my legs, both above and
below the knee. There are wires hooked
up to my chest that monitor the beating of my heart. As the heart pumps blood there is air that
goes into the blood pressure like cups to help push the blood to my head and
strengthen my heart as this works. While
this was going on for an hour I was listening to a sermon by John MacArthur on
kind of like an introduction to the first chapter of 1 John and he went into
verse nine for some time as what he was saying caught my attention. He was breaking down the verse and said that
John was writing some of the things in the first chapter of 1 John to unbelievers
including verse nine. Well that surely
caught my attention and I have been praying and talking to the Lord to help me
understand exactly the meaning of this.
I have not gone over this section that we are about to look at so I hope
and pray that this will help me to better understand a verse that I have prayed
to God using for many, many years. Keep
me in your prayers to be able to write the truth about this verse.
I
will begin with a quotation from John MacArthur’s first paragraph from his
commentary entitled “Confessing.” “Confession
of sin is absolutely crucial to entering the Light (justification) (cf. Mark
1:15; Luke 18:13-14) and waling in it (sanctification).” I will now quote these verses: “and saying,
"The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and
believe in the gospel." (Mark 1:15).
“13 “But the tax collector, standing some distance away, was even
unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, ‘God,
be merciful to me, the sinner!’ 14 "I tell you, this man went to his house
justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be
humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.’” “Though this is obvious in Scripture, there
are many who even claim that one needs only to accept the facts about Jesus for
salvation, arguing that the confession and repentance of sin are unnecessary—or
optional at best—for justification. Out
of the soil of that errant Soteriology (study of salvation) comes the antinomian
(relating to the view that Christians are
released by grace from the obligation of observing the
moral law.) (back to MacArthur’s
commentary) “indifference toward a Christian life or repentance and confession
for the sake of holiness. (For an in-depth discussion of the erroneous view point
and exposition of biblical doctrine of salvation see John MacArthur, The Gospel According to Jesus [Nashville;
Thomas Nelson, 1993, 2001].)
“Such views exist in
spite of biblical calls to repentance and examples of people who openly
acknowledged their sins to God. ‘So Judah
said, ‘What can we say to my lord? What
can we speak? And how can we justify ourselves?
God has found out the iniquity of your servants’’ (Gen. 44:16a; cf.
41:9; Jon. 3:5-10). Overwhelmed by a
vision of God’s majestic holiness, the prophet Isaiah cried out, ‘Woe to me,
for I am ruined! Because I am a man of
unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen
the King, the Lord of hosts’ (Isa. 6:5; cf. 1 Chron. 21:17; Dan. 9:20). The
Psalms are filled with confessions, most notably David’s in Psalm 51.”
We will take our time
going through this verse and the commentary from MacArthur which I believe will
be very helpful to all who read it.
9/7/2024 11:03 AM
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