(Joni sings)
Search me, O God,
And know my heart today;
Try me, O Savior,
Know my thoughts, I pray.
See if there be
Some wicked way in me;
Cleanse me from every sin
And set me free.
I love that hymn. I sing it often. The Bible says that if we hide iniquity in our heart, the Lord will not hear us. If we try to pray knowing full well we're covering up some secret sin, our prayers simply won't have power with God.
That's why I love this beautiful old hymn and I often sing it to the Lord in my time of prayer right before I confess my faults and failures. Confession means to agree with God about our sins and shortcomings. At no other time in prayer will you look more closely at your own spiritual growth than during your time of confession. And God does not ask us to confess our sins because He needs to know what we've been up to, but because He knows we need to search our hearts and know our thoughts and understand who we really are way down deep.
I think acknowledging sins in a specific way is the best approach to prayerful confession. God didn't generally die for your general iniquities. He died specifically for your specific sins. And just in case you're having trouble discovering those specific things about yourself that need confession, try this next time you pray.
First, ask God to show you those things in your life that need to be brought to the surface. That's important because our conscience can't be trusted to be our guide here... only the Spirit who convicts. So ask the Lord to reveal those things. Next, take a slow survey of the previous 24 hours. Mentally rehearse your conversations and what you thought before and after each encounter with a friend or a family member. Ask yourself questions like, "Did I represent God in a good way with that person? Was I honest when I said this and that at work? Where did my thought life wander off to today?
Point by point, listing through as many incidents as you can recall, confess things like an impure heart... a false report... a fudging of the truth... puffed up pride... selfishness in a conversation... resentment at something someone said... envy because another was promoted... worry that a project isn't going to turn out right...
And most of all, confess what David did in Psalm 51, "Against Thee and Thee alone have I sinned." That sums it up. What irritates me about my sin is that I worry more than I have failed myself and others rather than offended God. So I have to say, "Cleanse me, Lord, and make me new." And like the song says, "Cleanse me from every sin and set me free."
Used by permission of
JONI AND FRIENDS
P.O. Box 3333
Agoura Hills, CA 93176
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