Though we profess that God is all-seeing and all-knowing, that he understands not merely the actions of our hands and the thoughts of our minds but even the intentions of our hearts, still we sometimes feel as if we need to hold back from telling him all that we have thought, all that we have done, all that we have desired. Yet if we are to confess our sins before him, we need to confess them all, for he knows them anyway. These words from F.B. Meyer encourage you to tell him the truth—the unvarnished truth.

You have lost the light of God’s face, not because He has arbitrarily withdrawn it, but because your iniquities have come between you and your God; and your sins, like a cloud before the sun, have hid His face from you.
Do not spend time by looking at them as a whole. Deal with them one by one. The Boer is a formidable foe to the British soldier because he is trained from boyhood to take a definite aim and bring down his mark, whilst our soldiers fire in volleys. In dealing with sin, we should imitate him in the definiteness and accuracy of his aim.
Ask God to search you and show you what wicked way is in you. Marshal all your life before Him, as Joshua marshalled Israel, sift it through, tribe by tribe, family by family, household by household, man by man, until at last you find the Achan who has robbed you of the blessed smile of God.
Do not say: “Lord, I am a great sinner, I have done what I ought not, I have not done what I ought;” but say, “Lord, I have sinned in this, and this, and that, and the other.” Call up each rebel sin, by its right name, to receive sentence of death. Your heart is choked with sins; empty it out, as you would empty a box, by handing out first the articles that lie on the surface.
When you have removed them, you will see more underneath; hand them out also. When these are removed, you will probably see some more. Never rest till all are gone.
Confession is just this process of telling God the unvarnished story—the sad, sad story—of each accursed sin; how it began: how you sinfully permitted it to grow: how you have loved and followed it to your bitter cost.

The Israelites had sojourned in the wilderness until the last of an entire rebellious generation had died and been buried. They had walked to the banks of the Jordan and had seen its waters part before them. They had crossed the river and entered the Promised Land. And now the true work and the true challenge would begin.

Though God had promised that this people would inherit this land, and though he had promised that it would be their possession, he did not intend to deliver it to them in its completed form. He did not intend to give them a land whose every field was forever cleared and tilled, whose every crop was forever ripe for harvest, whose every barn was forever full. Rather, he intended to give them a land whose climate was right, who soil was rich, whose nutrients were plentiful, and whose waters were pure. He intended to give them a land that would respond appropriately and provide bountifully to their hard labor.
And so as the people took possession of the land, as they displaced its inhabitants, they set to work. They claimed the fields that had already been broken and planted, but they also claimed new fields and prepared them for sowing and watering and reaping. Year by year they expanded their territory, season by season the portion of the land that would provide for its new people.
And in much the same way, we as Christians are given a great promise—that the God who has claimed us will reshape us. We are told that we are to be perfect even as God is perfect, told that we are to put every sin to death and come alive to every virtue, told that we are to become more and more like our Savior Jesus Christ. But as the Israelites had to labor to claim what was theirs, so too do we. As the Israelites had to take possession of what God had promised, so too do Christians.
And so we enter the new life united to our Savior by faith and indwelled by his Holy Spirit. We come to understand the great promise that we are to be joint heirs of his inheritance and that all that belongs to him is to be ours. And then we come to learn how to receive and how to use what he offers to us so we can extend the borders of our possession, enlarge our territory, always pressing back the chaos of depravity so divine graces can take root and grow and bring forth precious fruit. Even our ugliest faults, our most established habits, and our most coddled sins begin to waver and crumble. Bit by bit we conquer the old and come alive to the new. Day by day we take more and more of the vast possession that is ours in Christ. And always and ever we look with expectation to the day the battles will finally be over, the land will finally be fully conquered, and we shall reign forever with Him.

Good morning. Grace and peace to you.

Today’s Kindle deals include a long list of good books.
Logos is kicking off a new month with a sale on many of the best commentaries you can get. (Also, use the code EXTRASAVINGS to get $10 off a purchase of $100, $25 off $200, $45 off $300, or $75 off $500.)
(Yesterday on the blog: Fourteen Signs That You Might Be Legalistic)
Supreme Court Issues Ruling Protecting Religious Free Speech
Joe Carter explains an important Supreme Court decision. (See also Denny Burk)
Money Makes a Horrible Master and a Valuable Servant
Randy Alcorn: “Money has social and economic benefits that can be used for the betterment of people. As a plow can be used for honest labor and a sack of grain for feeding a family, so money, which simply represents their value, can be used for good.”
The Story of Us
Shane Rosenthal writes about words and stories and other important things.
Yearning for Oneness: A John 17 Meditation
What does it look like to yearn for oneness with God, and how do we get there? That’s the topic of this article.
Why Is it Better That Jesus Went Away?
“God never leaves his people. If the Holy Spirit has been God’s tangible presence among his people throughout their history, surely the Spirit’s descending on Jesus at his baptism and the pouring out of the Spirit at Pentecost are continuations of the same story. We see this promise coming to fruition in John 14–16.”
Not THAT Kind of Homosexual Behavior? (Video)
This is a good answer to a very common (but misguided) understanding of some Greek words.
Flashback: The Utter Horror of the Smallest Sins
…our hearts are so desperately wicked that there’s no area of life in which we won’t express our rebellion against God.

There is a difference between the preaching of someone who is, in disposition, on his knees before you and someone who is on his feet lording it over you. —Sinclair Ferguson