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unbelief
to your pile of sins.
    True
confession is freely acknowledging your total dependence on God’s grace — grace
for salvation, sanctification, and every other thing. True confession is
putting faith into words and relying on the One who cleanses you from all
unrighteousness.
    Bad
confession seems right to man but ultimately leads to death. Good confession
leads to life and godliness. Unhealthy confession is the funeral march of dead
religion, but healthy confession is the joyful soundtrack of living grace!
     
    A word after
     
    I’ve got nothing to add to this
brilliant and liberating article (cough!), so here’s a confession joke. A man
in Amsterdam felt that he needed to confess his sins, so he goes to his priest.
     “Forgive
me Father, for I have sinned. During World War 2 I hid a refugee in my attic.”
     “Well,”
answered the priest, “that’s hardly a sin.”
    “But I
made him agree to pay me 20 guilders for every week he stayed.”
    “I admit
that wasn’t good, but you did it for a good cause.”
     “Oh,
thank you, Father. That eases my mind. I just have one more question...”
    “What is
that, my son?”
    “Do I
have to tell him the war is over?”
     
     

7. Seven More Signs
that You Might Be Living Under Law
     
    C.S. Lewis said that the safest
road to hell is the one without signposts. You might say the same thing about
the road that leads back to the law. It’s gradual and unmarked. Can you imagine
the Galatians saying, “Let’s stop trusting Jesus and try to complete in our own
efforts what he began”? Of course not, for if they had thought about what they
were doing, they would’ve stood firm and not fallen from grace.
    Paul
said the Galatians were bewitched. Some translations say they were under a
spell. To set them free from the spell of the law, Paul asked pointed
questions. “Are you trying to complete with human effort that which God began?”
(see Galatians 3:3).
    If the
road to law is not well signposted, then one way to avoid it is to be conscious
of grace-killers such as human effort, manmade traditions, and rules and
regulations. Self-imposed law can take many forms. Elsewhere I have listed
seven signs that will alert you to the danger of trading grace for law. Here
are seven more…
     
    1.  You feel rejected, guilty,
condemned, or unworthy
     
    Condemnation is the number one
symptom of a law-based life for the law is a ministry that condemns (2
Corinthians 3:9). Before the cross, Adam’s sin meant condemnation for all, but
there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 5:18, 8:1).
    By God’s
perfect standard, all of us fall short. None of us deserves what God has given.
That’s why it’s called grace. He qualifies the worst of us and makes us his
beloved sons. A life captivated by grace is marked by gratitude and praise, but
a life under law remains captive to guilt and condemnation.
     
    2.  You think working out your
salvation means working for your salvation
     
    Jesus’ work on the cross was
perfectly perfect and completely complete. Because of his sacrifice you have
been made perfect forever (Hebrews 10:14). There is nothing you can do to
improve upon his perfect and finished work. To work out your salvation is
to express and exercise the gift he has placed within you. It’s working out in
your circumstances the full implications of what Christ has done.
     
    3.  You treat the Bible as a
road map or instruction manual
     
    We are to live by the Spirit, not
the book. God wants us to have a relationship with himself, not his letter.
Jesus gave us a pattern for Bible study on the road to Emmaus when he pointed
out in the Scriptures all those things concerning himself (Luke 24:27). Don’t
read the Bible to find out what to do. Read it to learn about Jesus.
     
    4.  You think the remedy for
lukewarmness is to get zealous for God
     
    Contrary to what you may have heard,
we are not in a Mr. or Ms. Enthusiasm contest. God is not watching