I once told a friend of a recurring temptation of mine. Over the next month, he shared my secret with a dozen other friends, spicing up the tale with the fib that I had yielded to the temptation—even though I hadn’t. His betrayal shocked me. I skipped several lunch and dinner appointments, unsure who had heard and what they thought.
His disclosure also angered me. I obsessed over his treachery: How could he have divulged my secret temptation? And why worsen my shame with the sneering proclamation I had done it! I would never have betrayed a friend like that.
One day, as I fumed over his relational-adultery, I sensed God’s voice speak into my seething self-pity: Sam, why are you so angry? I thought the answer obvious: My friend had stabbed me in the back! Then I remembered a verse:
“I tell you, when one sinner repents, there is joy among the angels of God.” (Luke 15:10)
I thought, Sure, I suppose there would be joy in heaven if this jerk (I mean, friend) repented. His public confession might even bring me a bit of joy here on earth.
And I sensed God say, “I’m not talking about his sin; I’m talking about yours.”
But we hate to admit our own wrongs
What’s so bad about what I did? My friend actively told people of my faults, I only thought about his.
But my thinking was equally active. I wholeheartedly imagined friends discovering his duplicity, and I visualized his humiliation. I poked pins in my mental image of him, and I caricaturized him: he hadn’t just broken faith, he was faithless; he hadn’t just lied, he was a liar.
Imagining his crimes was like enjoying a feast. I savored every mental morsel. I relished each thought. The very idea of his eventual discovery tasted like desert.
A recent Facebook post claimed that Christians no longer need to repent. The writer said, “We have already died to sin [Rom. 6:2]. So how can a dead man repent?”
But when we reject personal repentance, we reject a chance to hear God’s voice.
What does God’s voice sound like when we sin?
We tend to think God speaks only to the Mother Teresa’s of this world. But that notion is just false. Think of Adam and Eve’s first sin of all time. Every evil you’ve ever seen or experienced—every rape, betrayal, ethnic-cleansing, and marginalization—resulted from their action.
But God didn’t send an avenging angel to wipe them out. He didn’t stew over their betrayal nor simmer in his wrath. Instead, God came to the Garden for conversation.
Before that first sin, we see God speaking to himself (“Let us make man in our image”) and giving direction (“You can eat of any tree but one”). After their world-changing sin, we see God initiating conversation with a question: “Adam and Eve, where are you?” It’s the pattern of God, pursuing the lost us with kind questions:
- He asks Cain, “Where is your brother?” after Cain murdered Abel;
- He asks Job, “Where were you when I formed the earth?” after Job doubts God’s justice;
- And he asks Jonah, “Are you right to be so angry?” as he smoldered in self-pity.
What does God’s voice sound like when we sin? Invitational. He seeks a divine dialogue with us even when we stumble.
We hear his voice then join the party
Jesus tells of a shepherd who leaves ninety-nine sheep to look for the one stupid sheep that ran away. He concludes: “I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety- nine righteous persons who need no repentance” (Luke 15:7).
Our repentance ignites a feast of celebration in heaven.
We don’t need to wait for personal perfection before we hear God’s voice. We need only be willing to listen as God ask us, “Where are you?” and “Why are you so angry?”
When we admit, “I’m stewing on the wrongs of others,” and “I care more for the world’s praise than yours,” we begin to participate in this divine dialogue, and we sit down to a divine dinner.
Maybe we’ll see that friend who wronged us; together we can toast to our own stupidity.
Sam
++++++++++++
Core to the human heart is the longing to hear God’s voice. Please consider buying my new book, Hearing God in Conversation: How to Recognize His Voice Everywhere. It will be released in mid-July by Kregel Publications.
I believe it will help you begin to hear God in a new conversational relationship.
Please consider pre-ordering the book now by 
clicking on one of these links or on the book cover.
Topics include:
- Learning to recognize the sound of God’s voice
- Hearing God in his silence
- How to Brainstorm with God
- Hearing God in Scripture
- Hearing God for guidance
Wayne Jacobson, pastor and author of He Loves Me and Finding Church, said this:
If you want to grow in your ability to recognize how God makes himself known to you, I can’t recommend a better guide than Sam Williamson’s Hearing God in Conversation.
Hearing God in Suffering
Sometimes my personal temptations become known, and even some peccadillos related to those temptations. I’m angered by the people who spread the news, and am tempted to justify myself. The scripture comes to mind, 1 Peter 2:19 For this is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. 20 For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God.
I’m suffering for my sin, and there’s no special merit in that. There is, though, the opportunity to repent, without defending myself, excusing myself, or evading the issue.
I find it incredible that God–and all of heaven–rejoices when we repent. The thing is, we can’t even repent unless God himself is moving in our hearts.
He comes to talk with us, invitational; Satan condemns (after tempting us first, of course) but Jesus comes invitationally, convicting us with his kind questions, urging us to turn away from the very things that imprison us.
Thanks
Good thoughts. I am having a real issue with someone who has judged me, and by judging him, I am guilty of the same sin! His invitation is always ” I am standing at the door knocking….” which is used for unbelievers but written to His children. For the one who says there is no need of repentance, and why even bother calling sin sin because it was dealt with already, it greatly saddens me as there is no hope of salvation for those caught in sin’s deep bondage if there is no sin and therefore no need of a Savior, who saves us for eternity, yes, but also from our own stupidity. He wants a relationship with me, in spite of my sin, but will not leave me in my sin, as it separates me from His heart, where all is well.
Hi Lois,
Great self-observation: we’re judging others as we meditate on their judging us! God save us. Oh! He does.
I also wonder at so many believers today who simply don’t want to admit our faults. Instead we focus on self-esteem. Yikes!
When Martin Luther put his ninety-nine theses on the church door, his very first one was: “Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ . . . willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.” On that, every church has agreed.
Until today. Alas.
I loved this post Sam. Sure could see myself all along the way!
Hi Michael,
As someone once said, “In each man’s story, we see every man’s story.” (That goes for woman too.)
Thanks
I needed to read this today. Thanks, Sam
Sam, Perhaps your best (Holy Spirit given) insights to date. Thanks for being vulnerable. When we are driven to the Savior, may we see not the impossibility of becoming like Him who is fully and truly human but the grace that is poured into our lives so that we can live in His presence and continue to be His instruments. Once again – overcome by God’s grace!
Hi Steve,
I really like your line, “overcome by God’s grace.”
That’s the way it should be. Yes, let’s try to live right, but at the same time, let’s recognize, WE CAN’T DO IT.
Unless (and until, and to the degree that) we are overcome by his grace.
Thank you