by Rev Douglas Brauner

Taking responsibility for our actions

You can listen to today’s devotion by clicking on this SoundCloud link.

“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” 
1 John 1:9 English Standard Version

From the very beginning we humans have struggled to come clean before God and take responsibility for our actions.

Adam blamed Eve.

Eve blamed the Serpent.

We blame the closest person to us.

My favorite line from the movie, “RocketMan, ” Goes something like this, “It wasn’t me. It was the hairy one” as Fred Z. Randall blamed a monkey for wasting their food on trip to Mars.

What if Adam would have said, “I ate the fruit?”

What if Eve would have said, “I ate the fruit?”

What if we would say, “I did the deed?”

One Saturday night my father asked me if I had done my memory work for Sunday School the next day. I hadn’t. Rather than tell the truth I thought I could lie my way out of it. That didn’t work. I couldn’t even repeat one word like “the” or “and.” You’d think I would have learned my lesson, but it was hard to speak truth to my father. I didn’t see him as an instrument of grace.

The Apostle John must have known sin. Instead of calling out his readers he calls himself and his readers to take responsibility for their sin. “If we confess our sins,” he writes not “if you confess your sins.” We all struggle with confession. We all struggle to come clean with God.

It’s easy for us to think of God as a mean tyrant who wants to punish us when we do wrong, but John reminds us that we have benevolent God who wants to forgive us more than anything else. John leaves no doubt. When we confess, God forgives…period. Sin is removed as far as the East is from the West. Jesus’ blood cleanses every last act of rebellion.

Copyright Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Colorado Springs, Colorado