Looking Up When Life is Looking Down by Beth Moore

Author:Beth Moore
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Published: 2010-09-09T00:00:00+00:00

DEUTERONOMY 4:29

After you cry out, confess. Think sin, but then think wider. Though it’s absolutely vital, confessing sin is not the only way we practice confession. In its widest sense, confession is our means of baring our heart and soul before God. Confession is a way we agree with what God says about Himself and about us. Confession takes place every time you tell God how much you need Him. So tell Him what’s on your mind. What kind of mess you’re in. Who’s in it with you. What’s holding you back. Who’s broken your heart. Even if your first impulse is to think it’s Him. As long as you can feel it, spill it. Psalm 145:18 says, “The LORD is near to all who call on him, / to all who call on him in truth” (NIV).

Confession, by the way, is incomplete until we actively accept God’s certain forgiveness. Take a fresh look at 1 John 1:9: “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” And 1 John 3:21–22: “Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him” (NIV).

“If our hearts do not condemn us.” Our self-condemning hearts can’t block our forgiveness, but they can keep us from feeling forgiven. The result will be a twisted resignation to our own capacity to sin rather than any confidence in God’s capacity to restore us.

The third step is consent. I love this one. Consent is the most beautiful part of the process of getting out of a pit. There is no ambiguity about this step: God wants you out of that pit. He wants you in victory. So all you have to do is consent to what He already wants for you.

Beloved, God’s will is for you to get out of that pit. If you will consent to the process and wait upon God as He begins shifting, shoving, and rearranging things for your release, you can go ahead and start getting excited, because it will happen. Just as God promises in His Word. If you’re ready to start actively consenting, I’m ready to tell you the most effective way to do it.

When I first introduced the three steps to you—cry out, confess, and consent—I told you that each of them involves your mouth. So we’re going to learn to speak out. And I don’t mean mumbling under your breath. I want you to learn to cry out, confess, and consent using God’s Word—and to do so, when at all possible, out loud. Volume is not the point. All you need is to have your own ears hear it. Why? I feel so strongly about this concept that I’m almost standing up at the keyboard to write it. Listen, beloved, “faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17 NASB). Your faith will be built by hearing your own voice speak the words of Christ.

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