OWN YOUR SIN
There is no freedom, no progress, no change possible or hope for the future, if you are unwilling to own your sin, take responsibility for it, repent and change.
Time and time again, I have seen this in marriages. One spouse builds a narrative as to why their marriage is not working, and it’s almost always based on them blaming their spouse’s failings or inadequacies for the reasons the marriage has soured or failed to progress. When all along it is their failure to own their own sin, take responsibility for their own failures, acknowledge them, seek forgiveness for them, repent of them, and change their ways.
Since the dawn of mankind when Eve blamed the serpent, Adam blamed Eve, most couples fail to own their own sin. To genuinely, humbly reflect on what they are doing that makes the marriage so difficult, what is it about themselves that needs to be repented of and changed, in order to make their marriage better. Time and time again, they blame it on someone or something else.
Many even blame God as Proverbs 19:3 states, People ruin their lives by their own foolishness and then blame it on the Lord.
There are of course marital situations where it’s true, the other spouse’s sin, the other spouse’s pride, the other spouse’s willful blindness, hardness of heart, and foolishness indeed make the marriage a living hell. Where no real progress can be made because of the intransigence of that spouse.
I have tremendous empathy and great compassion for those who are in this situation. It is a gut-wrenching ordeal. It is certainly true that a spouse’s sins, unrepented of, can handicap or ruin your marriage even though you genuinely want your marriage to work with all your heart.
But this also illustrates why that offending spouse needs so desperately to own their own sin, acknowledge it, seek forgiveness from their spouse, repent and change.
As a young husband this truth, own your sin, transformed my life and my marriage. There were things happening early on in my marriage that I found very easy to blame my spouse for. I excused my own sinfulness, on the provocations of my spouse. If only she would do this if only she would do that. If she hadn’t done this, I wouldn’t have done that. If she hadn’t said this, I wouldn’t have said that.
It was a vicious cycle that only led me downward in further frustration and foolishness. God began to reveal to me my desperate need to own my own sin. To take full responsibility for my own actions, thoughts, choices, words, and attitudes, to acknowledge my own wrongs, repent of them and work diligently to grow and change. In so doing I found freedom, greater joy, God’s greater blessing in my life, and real change and progress was made.
Be extremely careful, and extremely alert to this tendency in yourself and your marriage. Are you straining at a gnat in your spouse, while swallowing a camel in yourself? Are you obsessed with the speck in their eye, but willfully ignoring the log in yours? Take some time today, seriously reflect on your actions, attitudes, choices, and words in your marriage. Then, Own your sin, change your life!
Proverbs 28:13
Whoever conceals their sins does not prosper, but the one who confesses {acknowledges} and renounces them finds mercy.
REMEMBER THIS ALWAYS:
GOD OPPOSES YOUR PRIDE
GOD BLESSES YOUR HUMILITY
Helping you become a Strong Disciple,
Because of Jesus,
Pastor Mark Darling
