Day 9

If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in 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 1:8-9

Yesterday I challenged you to do a submission survey in your life—to ask God to show you areas of your life that you haven’t fully submitted to him and are thereby vulnerable to the devil’s attacks. Today I want to go a little deeper.

Sin comes in many forms. There are those obvious ones that we commit, like anger or sexual sins which are easy to recognize and, if they are absent, we can sort of convince ourselves we are doing okay because at least we aren’t doing THOSE things.

But what about the subtler sins of the heart that no one can see? What about those hidden things that, if we squint, we can almost not notice at all?

Suzanna Wesley says it this way:

“Whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, takes off your relish for spiritual things, whatever increases the authority

of the body over the mind, that thing is sin to you, however innocent it may seem in itself.”

Whatever causes confusion in your mind

Whatever stops you from caring about the things you know you should care about

Whatever clouds your ability to hear God

Whatever weakens your desire for prayer, for reading the Bible, for going to church

Whatever feeds your physical desires while starving your soul

That thing is sin to you, however innocent it may seem in itself

Today, I want you to pray each one of these above statements, inviting God to show you hidden things that you either haven’t recognized, or have refused to acknowledge as sin in your life. Then repent of each thing that He brings to your mind, standing on the truth that He is “is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).

Repenting and submitting these things to God will begin to build the walls of protection around your heart and mind and body which is the first and vital step in resisting the enemy’s plans for you. This step will begin to restore you to the full life that your uneasy heart is desperately longing for.