Those who conceal their sins do not prosper, but those who confess and forsake them obtain mercy. (Prov 28:13)
Sin takes us right back to the Garden of Eden. It is an act of disobedience and rejection of God’s will where we, like Eve, exercise the will to become "like gods," knowing and determining good and evil (Gen 3:5). No one is a stranger to sin in and of itself. We all do it…every day. Anyone who claims not to sin is suffering from denial and could possibly be under the influence of a demon.
Where the problem comes into play is how we react to sin in our lives. Here are some common reactions of which a demon can take advantage:
“Oh well. God will forgive me.”
This reaction can start innocently enough whereby the person is contrite about the sin with the intention of a deeper conversion to Christ. However, an evil spirit can take this mindset and influence the person to a position of presumption, which means the person may start to expect forgiveness without a contrite heart or have no intention for a deeper conversion. The person may even begin to believe they can save themselves without the grace of God.
“Well, everyone else is doing it.”
This kind of insidious relativism is rampant in our culture and easy to fall into without realizing it. It is particularly rampant in circles of addiction. An addict will often use this as an excuse to indulge in their vice. Eventually, it progresses to the point where the person no longer pauses to make the excuse. They often begin to add another vice to their addiction. Why they would do that…because everyone else is doing it. Beware non-addicts, you are just a susceptible to this trap as the addict is, even if the result isn’t as evident as something like alcoholism or drug abuse.
“I don’t believe it is wrong.”
Most likely, this one starts out as one of the other two in some, way, shape, or form. The bottom line is there is generally only one truth, but millions of perceptions of that truth. For example, abortion cannot be both morally acceptable and morally unacceptable. That’s an extreme case, but very illustrative. It applies to every other moral decision we make every day. We tell ourselves it is not wrong to tell the little white lie. We tell ourselves it is not wrong to talk about someone behind their back. Like other evil spiritual influences, the more things we are convinced are not wrong, the more open we are to accept that other (more morally questionable things) are not wrong. Eventually, we don’t really know what is right or wrong any more.
For the sake of brevity, I have only given three examples, but there are plenty of messages evil spirits give us to convince us to not confess our sins.
The best defense against this exposure is to have a properly formed conscience and to examine your conscience every day. When you have identified a sin (especially a major, or mortal, sin) confess your sin to someone right away.
There are various resources to help you form your conscience and there are a variety of methods to examine your conscience. A good spiritual director can help you sort through these options and be a companion as the Lord guides you through this process.
A note on confessing your sins to others, this post is not intended to become a theological debate regarding going straight to God to confess sins vs confessing to another person. The idea of talking through these issues with someone else is based on sound psychology and on the practices of what works in 12 step recovery programs. Consider the following from the Alcoholics Anonymous version of Step 5:
- “Some people are unable to stay sober at all; others will relapse periodically until they really clean house.”
- “Most of us would declare that without a fearless admission of our defects to another human being we could not stay sober. It seems plain that the grace of God will not enter to expel our destructive obsessions until we are willing to try this.”
In my experience, the excuse that I can confess my sins directly to God is really just a coping mechanism for fear….fear that I would be rejected if someone else was to find out who I really am. Fear is an open door for an evil spirit to influence. If you don’t already do so, start confessing your sins to someone else (someone you can trust to keep it in confidence). Overcoming the fear to be vulnerable with someone else to confess your sins is often very spiritually liberating.
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