Ever done any decorating? Maybe the plaster covering the wall has a couple of cracks. Nothing too big, but they ruin the surface and don’t look good. So you fill them in and paint over them. It all looks fine, but you know there are problems below the surface. Eventually, a quick fix just isn’t enough and you’ll have to completely re-plaster the wall and start afresh. It can be like that with hidden sins. Proverbs 28:13 says: ‘You can’t whitewash your sins and get by with it; you find mercy by admitting and leaving them’ (MSG). We might feel ashamed of the things we’ve done wrong. Or we might think that nobody else can have done anything as bad, and our friends, family, colleagues, and even God will judge us and turn away from us because of the things we’ve done. So we ‘whitewash’ our sins, hiding them so we appear to be the righteous, perfect people we wish we were. But it’s only a quick fix, and sooner or later we’re going to be hurt by the guilt of what we’ve kept hidden. So we need to honestly bring them into the open and admit them. The Bible tells us: ‘If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness’ (1 John 1:9 NIV). God’s promised to forgive us if we admit what we’ve done wrong, and He always keeps His promises. So although it might be painful to open up and tell Him, we can be sure of His forgiveness. And when we do that, He’ll give us a fresh, new start. On the outside we look the same, but inside, we’ll be experiencing freedom from hidden sins.

What now?

Thank God for His gift of forgiveness. Thank Him that He keeps His promises to us.