What if? \u00a0 What if Ted Haggard had, 3 years ago, 3 months ago, or even 3 weeks ago, recognized the vile sins he was engaged in and gone to the leaders of his church and told them he was unqualified to be their pastor? \u00a0 If he had, he would have been placed on leave and suffered some measure of humiliation and discomfort in his family and his church. \u00a0 Instead he has disgraced himself, humiliated his family, and brought worldwide shame to the person and body of Christ.<\/p>\n
Why is it that everyone waits until they get caught? \u00a0 Why can’t believers admit their guilt themselves? \u00a0 Why are we unwilling to face the rightful consequences of our sin?<\/p>\n
There are so many examples, from King David on, where the consequences of sin are made so much more severe by the unwillingness to confess and repent.<\/p>\n
Are there secret areas in your life that no one will know about until you are caught? \u00a0 You’ll probably never be exposed on national TV, but if you get away with it successfully, you’ll try it again. \u00a0 Maybe you’ll never be exposed publicly; maybe your family will never live in shame of what you’ve done; maybe you’ll never lose your job or ministry position. \u00a0 But you’ll be living a lie, you will not have an intimate relationship with the Lord, and you will be dishonoring the One who redeemed you.<\/p>\n
“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. \u00a0 If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.” (1 John 1:9-10)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
What if? \u00a0 What if Ted Haggard had, 3 years ago, 3 months ago, or even 3 weeks ago, recognized the vile sins he was engaged in and gone to the leaders of his church and told them he was unqualified to be their pastor? \u00a0 If he had, he would have been placed on\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=406"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}