Concealing Sin

Romans 4:7 ...whose sins have been covered (epikalupto).

To conceal, i.e. (figuratively) forgive:--cover.

Sync with God.

I cannot forgive my own sins without first letting God forgive them.

To forgive, from the Greek, means to conceal and cover. If I conceal my sins before I accept the forgiveness of God then I incorporate them into myself as part of my identity. Then they will show up when the light comes unavoidably and I cannot separate myself from them and then I experience hell.

Sin has to be forgiven to be neutralized. Jesus neutralized all sin on the cross by experiencing the full force of the effects of desynchronization from God. But each person must accept that neutralization provide for us or else they will experience the results of pain and death that are the natural and unavoidable results of sin when truth and light increase in intensity.

Everything will come to the light sooner or later. The only choice we really have is whether we will submit to agreeing with the light and synchronizing with truth now or denying and concealing our sin and having it exposed later after sin has destroyed our capacity to let go of it.

When we conceal our sin without confession and repentance we are attempting to forgive our own sin without synchronizing with God and the redemption He has provided. We are trying to forgive our sin apart from accepting Jesus' death and suffering for our sin. In reality we are trying to be our own savior. It is a lethal trap that will result in our experiencing the same suffering and death that Jesus already experienced on our behalf so that we would not have to experience it.

Why do we try to conceal our sins and trust ourself? There are many reasons put out there but if they are condensed down to their roots I believe it is because of the lies and deceptions that we firmly believe about God. We are immersed and surrounded with false ideas and beliefs about God, about salvation, about spirituality and especially about religion. Anything that detracts from the truth about God's consistent and never-ending kindness, compassion and love will introduce the element of fear which will lead us to draw away from God instead of turning toward Him.

What is very interesting is that the same thing that doesn't work for us when we attempt to do it ourself is the very thing that God desires to do for us. While it is impossible for me to permanently cover up my own sins and succeed at becoming my own savior, God promises to do that very thing if I will agree with His revelations about myself and trust Him implicitly with my guilt. Forgiveness means to cover and to conceal. If I try to cover and conceal my sins myself, I only stay out of sync with reality and set myself up to experience the painful and ultimately fatal results of sin in myself. But when God forgives me through Jesus Christ, He then covers and conceals my sins in Christ and nothing can really expose them again. My heart is protected from my accusers even though they may continue to hound me about my past. The responsibility for those sins has been taken over by Jesus and He will never allow them to oppress my heart again. The only thing that can bring them back onto my head is if I reject totally the redemption provided for me and turn back to believing the lies about God, and once again start trusting in myself and resist the Spirit of God permanently. (see 2 Peter 2:15-22)

When I confess my sins (agree with the Holy Spirit's conviction inside my heart of what reality is), I allow the light of truth (about God) to expose them and begin to see how much I am unlike Him. The light of truth is not so much the truth about how bad I am (or a list of doctrines or facts) as it is the truth of how lovely, good, kind and perfect God is. The truth about me is only exposed – can only be seen proportionally – to the degree that I perceive the beauty and perfection of God's goodness and kindness. It is the kindness of God that leads me to repentance (Rom. 2:4). God is not threatening me with judgment to get me to repent (John 3:17). He is revealing His loveliness, His passion for intimacy with me, His desire for my friendship and companionship with Him for eternity. His kindness and total lack of bitterness, resentment, threats or ill-will toward me is what awakens and empowers me to stop concealing my sin in fear. Perfect love casts out all fear (1 John 4:18).

God does not use fear to lead me to repentance. Men use fear in their distortion of religion to intimidate others and themselves into supposed repentance. But this is all an illusion of true spirituality designed by the master of fear himself, Satan the accuser. Fear inherently torments us (1 John 4:18). When we believe we have to use fear to bring us to repentance we subscribe to a twisted picture of God who wants to torment us until we cave in and repent. This is part of the Big Lie that God is on trial for right now. God is not the ultimate torturer who is extracting confessions from suspects in His kingdom or venting His anger on rejectors of His mercy. That is the work of diabolical despots who reflect the character of Satan. God only uses the attraction of love to draw hearts to Himself. To do anything else would be to undermine in the hearts of the redeemed the very motives necessary for devotion and loyalty to preserve freedom from a re-occurrence of sin for the rest of eternity.

God loves the world so much that He gave Himself in the life of His Son Who took upon Himself all the pain and effects of every single sin every committed, so that anyone who believed that God was right and that He loved them, if they trusted His arrangement to take away from them the results of their specific sins, they could escape the awful consequences of being out of sync with the Source of life itself and will enjoy eternity living in the presence of love and joy and peace without any fear. (John 3:16 paraphrased)

For all of my life this text has meant very little to me because of the shallowness of its use and abuse. It was just a string of words that many people memorized, glazed over with many layers of religious piety without any depth of meaning. I wanted to understand its true meaning but have spent years chipping away at the layers of religious lacquer preventing it from coming alive. As I contemplated about forgiveness this morning and dialogged with God while I wrote down what came to my mind, I didn't realize I would end up at that text. Now it is taking on more meaning and life for me.

I do not want to cover up any of my sins and try to conceal them from God or live in denial. I want to be transparent and open about anything He convicts me of that needs to be released so that I can be synchronized with reality and receive His forgiveness and character in its place.

God, I crave a deeper, broader revelation of the truth about Your character, Your feelings and thoughts toward me, Your ways of relating to us. My heart is still in deep darkness even though my mind has seen much light and tries to believe it. I have to trust You to continue Your transformation of my heart to be more and more synchronized with Your heart and Your ways. Bring healing to the pain and the lies that still torment me and sabotage my relationship with You and with others. Help me to truly embrace the truth of Your everlasting kindness and unchanging love with my heart and soul and mind. Make me a messenger of the truth about You so that love can be awakened in others who are likewise suffering under similar delusions about You. Cause me to be a faithful friend of the Bridegroom.

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