A New Look at Confession Of Sin - Chapter 15b

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"Experiencing The Depths of Jesus Christ" by Madame Jeanne Guyon

Let us go on a little farther now and consider confession of sin

There is awaiting you a higher understanding and a higher experience of confession and repentance. Should you truly desire to walk these paths, you should be aware of something about confession of sin which is generally misunderstood.

In the past when you have confessed your sins to your Lord, you have most likely felt regret for those sins, have you not?

There is a higher experience of repentance, and there is a deeper experience of confession of sin, than the feeling of regret. In fact, you will find those feelings of regret replaced by something else—replaced by a love and tranquility. That love, that tranquility sweetly saturates your soul and, having saturated it thoroughly, takes full possession of it.

Repentance that is sweet? Confession of sin that brings love and tranquility? If you have never bee instructed in such matters, you will naturally want to resist this love.
You ill instead have a human inclination to try to produce a sorrowful, contrite attitude before God.

It has often been told you that a sorrowful, contrite heart over your sins is a thing well pleasing to God. This is true.

But consider this: Trying by your own effort to produce a contrite heart causes you to lose genuine repentance. What is genuine repentance? Have you ever had the experience of real, genuine repentance? Think back, was it not a deep felling of love pouring itself out within you?

It is that love, that deep sense of love within you which is a more purer and much higher expression of repentance; higher than anything you could probably reproduce by your own effort. This love takes all other feelings of repentance, sums them all up into one, and expresses the totality of repentance much more perfectly than if each part of repentance were individually expressed to the Lord.

When the Lord has established this relationship in your life, you will not need to trouble yourself to produce your feelings about your sin. God is working His expression of repentance into you in such a pure way.

God hates sin and to experience a repentance which is given to you wholly of God will bring you to hate sin as He hates it.

Dear reader, do not be anxious and do not be so eager for action. The purest love you can ever know is that love which comes to you when the Lord I working on your soul. So let Him work. You must remain in the place He assigns to you. Agree with the instruction of the wise man who said:

Put your confidence in God; remain quiet where He has placed you. (Apocrypha)

As you walk on in this experience we have just described, you will notice something. You will be amazed at how difficult it is to remember your sins! Forget your sins? Is this proper? Yes! And such an experience should not cause you to be uneasy. You see, forgetting your sins is a proof of you having been cleansed from them.

It is a good thing to have forgotten your sins. It is best you forget anything that concerns you so that you can remember only God.

Keep in mind that what has been presented in this chapter is a higher experience of confession and a deeper experience of repentance; yet you can be absolutely certain that as you experience the Lord this way, He does not allow your sins to be unexposed. On the other hand, if you do the exposing, much may be left undiscovered. That is not the case when it is the Lord who is examining you! Unlike you, He will bring all your faults to the light. Therefore leave your examination to God. You will find your heart far more revealed than if you had tried to do it by your own efforts.

Dear reader this must be made very clear: These instructions are not applicable to a Christian living on the level of experience in which the soul is still in the active state. These instructions are not for the soul that is still active. On that level of experience it is altogether right--and necessary --that the soul exert itself in dealing with sin.

The soul of the Christian exerts itself in proportion to where it is in spiritual advancement. The more the soul advance toward its center—that is, the farther it is removed from the surface—the less the soul exerts itself. (This is true in dealing with sin, in dealing with confession of sin, and in all other involvements of life as well.)
Should you come to know this more advance level, I exhort you no matter what your circumstances, to begin all your comings to the Lord by a very simple quiet waiting before Him.

In doing so, you allow Him to act freely within you. He can never be better received than by Himself.

Experiencing the Depths of Jesus Christ by Madame Jeanne Guyon
Other resources on praying scripture:
“Praying The Bible” The book of prayers by Wesley & Stacy Campbell...Please feel free to share this with a friend by sending them a link. Why not e-mail me with your comments.