The words to this Keith Green song
describe the occasional condition of our hearts.
My Eyes Are Dry
My eyes are dry
My faith is old
My heart is hard
My prayers are cold
And I know how I ought to be
Alive to You and dead to me
But what can be done
For an old heart like mine
Soften it up
With oil and wine
The oil is You, Your Spirit of love
Please wash me anew
With the wine of Your Blood
When we feel distant from the Lord,
we sometimes think He has moved.
He hasn’t.
The following is in exerpt from a book I am reading,
“Some Secrets of Christian Living” by F.B. Meyer.
Published in 1953, the book is as relevant
to believer’s today as it was in his day.
Seek to know and confess
whatever has come between God and you.
You have lost the light of God’s face, not because He has arbitrarily withdrawn it, but because your iniquities have come between you and your God, and your sins, like a cloud before the sun, have hid His face from you.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. 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 sayd, Lord, I have sinned in this, and this, and that, and the other. Call 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.
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.
This is excellent! This is what I need!
I will have to read this again and again. Maybe I should just print it and hang it above my sink so I can reread it every time I do the dishes.Thanks for the challenge! I needed it!
Confess one by one, never stop until you are through. I liked that. It is easy to get lazy and not keep weeding out the sins. Your blog looks cute, by the way. 🙂