Senior Pastor’s Devotional
Day 94 Movement Control Order – “Strategic Psalm 91 Watch”

I was intrigued by a devotional that described how we can be “confessing the wrong sin.”

Cecil Osborne said, “When we are hiding a deeper sin or fault we tend to confess a lesser sin all the more vigorously.”

For instance, an individual had been trying to overcome his smoking habit for years without success. He often confessed, “Lord, please take away this unhealthy habit. Please help me to stop smoking.”

Smoking wasn’t the real problem. True, his addiction to tobacco was a problem that needed to be resolved, but it was the symptom of a deeper problem – his reliance of smoking to de stress; to handle pressure. He needed to deal with that issue first.

This can be true in regards to many other issues within our hearts that project itself in the outward. A temperamental, critical person may be projecting his own unresolved issues onto other people. Those unresolved issues may be his “hurts”; or abuses.

We need to be ruthlessly honest with ourselves, to at least one safe person who won’t judge or put us down, and to God, and admit and confess not only the symptoms, but also the causes behind them. We may need to ask God to give us the courage to face these causes and lead us to the help, support, and recovery we need to overcome. This is the kind of praying that God hears and answers.

As his Word, the Bible, says, “The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth.” Psalm 145:18

May the Lord help us to deal with the right things in our hearts.

Pr Lawrence Yap.