God Uses People Who Confess Their Sins.

" God Uses People Who Confess Their Sins "

"If you keep yourself pure, you will be a special utensil for honorable use. Your life will be clean, and you will be ready for the Master to use you for every good work." (2 Timothy 2:21 NLT) God uses all kinds of vessels — big vessels and little vessels, ornate vessels and plain vessels, very expensive ones and very ordinary ones.  But there is one thing God will not use: a dirty vessel. So if you’re going to be used by God, you have to do some cleanup. Joshua told the people, “Purify yourselves, because tomorrow the LORD will perform miracles among you” (Joshua 3:5 TEV). The fact is, God wants to do something great in your future, too. But you have to start by settling the accounts of the past. You have to clean up yesterday. How do you do that? You do it through confession. Augustine said, “The confession of bad works is the beginning of good works.”  We start by dealing with our past. The Bible says, “If we confess our sins to God, he will keep his promise and do right: he will forgive us our sins and purify us from all our wrongdoing” (1 John 1:9 TEV). I’ll never forget the first time I made a "sin list." I felt like God was a million miles away, that he was distant. I couldn’t feel his power or his grace.  I felt like my prayers were bouncing off the ceiling. So, one night, I took out a pad of yellow paper and said, “God, show me every sin between me and you, and I will write it down specifically.  I committed it specifically. I'm going to confess it specifically.  We’re going to deal with it right now and get it out of the way.”  I started writing. And writing. And writing. I thought I was going to write a book, like "The Purpose Driven Sinner"!  I ended up with about nine pages of sins. It was 2 a.m. when I finished.  I confessed all those sins to God and wrote 1 John 1:9 over each. I’ve had to make a sin list many times since that night, because it’s very easy to let things come between us and God. You need to make a sin list on a regular basis so that you have a clean vessel to offer God for his use.  If you only take the garbage out of your house once a month, it’s going to start stinking.  Talk About It How long has it been since you confessed specific sins to God? As you make your sin list, what surprises you about what or how much you are recalling? ============================================================== " Live A Life That Matters " Ready or not, someday it will all come to an end. There will be no more sunrises, no minutes, hours or days. All your possessions & collections - whether treasures or baubles... Will pass to someone else. Your wealth, fame and temporal power will shrivel to irrelevance. It will not matter what you owned or what you were owed. Your grudges, resentments, frustrations, and jealousies will finally disappear. So, too, your hopes, ambitions, plans, and to-do lists will expire. The wins and losses that once seemed so important will fade away.  It won't matter where you came from, or on which side of the tracks you lived. It won't matter whether you were beautiful, handsome... Brilliant, rich or dull.   Even your gender and skin color will be irrelevant. So what will matter? How will the value of your days be measured? What will matter is not what you bought, but what you built   Not what you got, but what you gave.   What will matter is not your success, but your significance. What will matter is not what you learned, but what you taught. What will matter is every act of integrity, compassion, or sacrifice... that enriched, empowered or encouraged others to emulate your example. What will matter is not your competence, but your character. What will matter is not how many people you knew.... But how many people will feel a lasting loss, when you’re gone. What will matter is not your memories.... but the memories that live in those who loved you. What will matter is how long you will be remembered, by whom and for what... Living a life that matters doesn't happen by accident. It's not a matter of circumstance but of choice. Lets make that choice NOW !  To live a life that matters