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Believers are ones who are convicted but guiltless—“through faith” in the expiating Blood of Christ (Eph 1:7; Col 1:14; 1 John 1:7). Thus confession does not procure forgiveness but manifests God’s forgiveness; and that He has “cleansed us from all unrighteousness! This is to understand that confession does not effect (produce) forgiveness but rather manifests its reception, because one who knows not forgiveness will not confess (admit); and confession perpetuates fellowship with the Father. Therefore those who are non-confessing and unrepentant manifests the absence of having been “forgiven” and “cleansed.” – NC
Freely Confess
Believers who understand grace best are the ones who confesses their sins best. It is a lack of understanding grace that makes a person timid to confess sins to the Father. “Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed are those whom the Lord will not impute sin” (Rom 4:7, 8). By His grace and mercy the Lord clears you altogether.
The thief on the cross is a perfect blank, so he is a perfect example of grace. He is on a cross and has nothing to expect from God or man, therefore he can only be a recipient. Grace purposes a new Person and a new position. The Lord Jesus says to him, “Today shalt thou be with me in paradise.” He exchanges his own condition as a man for Christ’s. God’s righteousness places him in the highest place, in the presence of God – that’s what He has done for a man entitled to nothing.
A person who has nothing must not in anywise modify what grace puts upon him. Grace proposes a thing to him, he is entitled to nothing but judgement; grace comes in and clears him entirely. Now he must be essentially subject to what grace proposes, namely, he cannot take a lower person than the Person of the Lord Jesus, not a lower position than the paradise of God. Grace says, “Everything on your side is gone, and now I will act as I like.”
Christ meets the thief with, “Today shalt thou be with Me in paradise.” You cannot have this too clearly, that everything has been blotted out by the Blood of the Savior, and now He will write on your heart a new order of things. Scripture presents the effect, you learn what grace is, you have nothing to keep up (concerning receiving and retaining salvation—NC), and the effect is that in your spirit there is no guile (the obedience that follows redemption manifests it, not effects it—NC).
Although you are on entirely new ground with the Father, you fail again, and you are astonished to find you do wrong and that you are a failing person even though a Christian. You ought not to do wrong, but “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). Again you find you have sin in you and you feel it ought not to be there. What do you do? In one sense I am not sorry when people are in Romans Seven. You may try to cloak or excuse yourself when you fail; if you have a tender conscience you say, “It was so and so,” but that is not confession.
You are not to wait for the law to find you out, you are to tell on yourself. You are to stand before God against yourself, and the better you tell out the things, the clearer you get discharged. “Godly sorrow worketh repentance.” I never saw a person so hardened that he was not sorry that he has done a thing, but repentance is that I repudiate the principle (old man – Rom 7:17, 20—NC) that does it; not that I regret the tarnish on myself and am sorry that I made so little of myself, but I repudiate the thing as before God.
There is to be nothing hidden, it is an action of extreme importance to our hearts; you let the Lord Jesus see all. It is not going to Him for answers, but you confide to Him the whole of your heart; you have such a sense of what His wisdom is that you give Him the master key. You cannot make a person your confidant unless you know he has wisdom. If he has not wisdom, you have committed yourself where you will be badly handled and you make him your master. What makes me proof against the man of evil and the woman of flattery (Pro 6:24)? Wisdom!
- J B Stoney
Excerpt from MJS devotional for July 28:
No true believer expects the Law to give life, yet many expect it to govern life. Too few realize that their death on the Cross separated them from the entire principle of law, and that their resurrection united them to the Lord Jesus, “full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).
“All of the Lord’s commands to me are according to the new nature I already have. He is my life, and all His words are the expression of that life. Therefore when His words are given to me, they only give me the authority to do what my new nature likes to do. ‘A new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in Him and in you” (1 John 2:8). -J.N.D.
None But The Hungry Heart
Freely Confess
Believers who understand grace best are the ones who confesses their sins best. It is a lack of understanding grace that makes a person timid to confess sins to the Father. “Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed are those whom the Lord will not impute sin” (Rom 4:7, 8). By His grace and mercy the Lord clears you altogether.
The thief on the cross is a perfect blank, so he is a perfect example of grace. He is on a cross and has nothing to expect from God or man, therefore he can only be a recipient. Grace purposes a new Person and a new position. The Lord Jesus says to him, “Today shalt thou be with me in paradise.” He exchanges his own condition as a man for Christ’s. God’s righteousness places him in the highest place, in the presence of God – that’s what He has done for a man entitled to nothing.
A person who has nothing must not in anywise modify what grace puts upon him. Grace proposes a thing to him, he is entitled to nothing but judgement; grace comes in and clears him entirely. Now he must be essentially subject to what grace proposes, namely, he cannot take a lower person than the Person of the Lord Jesus, not a lower position than the paradise of God. Grace says, “Everything on your side is gone, and now I will act as I like.”
Christ meets the thief with, “Today shalt thou be with Me in paradise.” You cannot have this too clearly, that everything has been blotted out by the Blood of the Savior, and now He will write on your heart a new order of things. Scripture presents the effect, you learn what grace is, you have nothing to keep up (concerning receiving and retaining salvation—NC), and the effect is that in your spirit there is no guile (the obedience that follows redemption manifests it, not effects it—NC).
Although you are on entirely new ground with the Father, you fail again, and you are astonished to find you do wrong and that you are a failing person even though a Christian. You ought not to do wrong, but “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). Again you find you have sin in you and you feel it ought not to be there. What do you do? In one sense I am not sorry when people are in Romans Seven. You may try to cloak or excuse yourself when you fail; if you have a tender conscience you say, “It was so and so,” but that is not confession.
You are not to wait for the law to find you out, you are to tell on yourself. You are to stand before God against yourself, and the better you tell out the things, the clearer you get discharged. “Godly sorrow worketh repentance.” I never saw a person so hardened that he was not sorry that he has done a thing, but repentance is that I repudiate the principle (old man – Rom 7:17, 20—NC) that does it; not that I regret the tarnish on myself and am sorry that I made so little of myself, but I repudiate the thing as before God.
There is to be nothing hidden, it is an action of extreme importance to our hearts; you let the Lord Jesus see all. It is not going to Him for answers, but you confide to Him the whole of your heart; you have such a sense of what His wisdom is that you give Him the master key. You cannot make a person your confidant unless you know he has wisdom. If he has not wisdom, you have committed yourself where you will be badly handled and you make him your master. What makes me proof against the man of evil and the woman of flattery (Pro 6:24)? Wisdom!
- J B Stoney
Excerpt from MJS devotional for July 28:
No true believer expects the Law to give life, yet many expect it to govern life. Too few realize that their death on the Cross separated them from the entire principle of law, and that their resurrection united them to the Lord Jesus, “full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).
“All of the Lord’s commands to me are according to the new nature I already have. He is my life, and all His words are the expression of that life. Therefore when His words are given to me, they only give me the authority to do what my new nature likes to do. ‘A new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in Him and in you” (1 John 2:8). -J.N.D.
None But The Hungry Heart
