Last Sunday at church the worship leader was leading us in prayer and mentioned something to the effect that “God is not mad at you” It got to me to thinking…Does God get mad at believers who willfully and deliberately want to stay in their sin?
First, all believers willfully and deliberately sin. It’s in our nature. Second, God does not get mad at us for doing so. In Colossians 1:19-20 Paul wrote that God reconciled all things to Himself by making peace through the blood of Jesus, shed on the cross for our sins.
It was an act of perfect love on His part, and as John said, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out all fear because fear has to do with punishment” (1 John 4:18). Because Jesus was punished for our sins, we can’t be. The list of sins God had against us has been wiped clean forever with the blood of Jesus.
Even so, believers who fail to confess their sins can fall into Satan’s trap of believing that God is mad at them for sinning and is going to punish them, and that’s what your worship leader was referring to. They don’t realize that God isn’t mad at them, it’s their own guilt that makes them afraid of Him. Satan is using their guilt in an effort to drive a wedge between them and God.
1 John 1:9 is the remedy for this. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” Even for believers who are already forgiven, confession is good for the soul, because it restores peace to our heart by relieving our guilt. And here’s the best part, since Jesus paid the price for all our sins, forgiveness is guaranteed. We have nothing to lose and a peaceful heart to gain.