quiet and settled hearts
freedom from the extreme and heavy burden of sin
There is only one way such freedom comes: confessing our sins to the Father, and receiving assurance of his pardon which comes through the shed blood of his Son, Jesus, the Christ.
I was powerfully reminded of this again this morning as I worked my way through my communion time with the Lord, using my daily liturgy. Here was the prayer of confession I offered:
O Lord, let not your law be a cursing to our consciences, but rather give us grace under this extreme and heavy burden of sin, to be fully persuaded, that you by your death have taken away all our sins, and fulfilled the law for us, and by this means have delivered us from the curse of the law and paid our ransom; and then we, being thus fully persuaded, may have quiet and settled hearts, and a free conscience, and glad desiring wills to forsake this wicked world. Amen. (Henry Smith)
Do you see? The pathway of freedom from the extreme and heavy burden of sin is a straight one.
First, go to the Father. Don’t run. Don’t hide. Don’t cover. Admit your sin.
Second, don’t stay there. Rather, now ask him to fully persuade you of what you already know—that Jesus, by his death, has taken away all your sin! How glorious! Go a step further now, and ask him to convince you that this is true, so that you may believe it deep down, and once again receive this free gift of grace and mercy.
Finally, being thus fully persuaded, you are now able to have a quiet and settled heart and a free conscience. Why? Because your sin is paid for, and forgiven. This is what we’ve been after all along, for sin makes us restless and anxious, it causes agitation and agony of the soul, it truly is an extreme and heavy burden. But being fully persuaded of Jesus’ redemption and forgiveness, the noise of our nervousness and unsettledness is replaced by the quiet and settled state of freedom. Hallelujah.
But we’re not done.
The next step in the liturgy is to push this down even further into our souls by receiving words of comfort from God through an assurance of pardon:
I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. (Ezekiel 36:25-27)
Friend, don’t miss the connection between the confession and the comfort.
For those pursuits—and their results—in the confession don’t depend on us.
God will sprinkle us clean, and we will be clean.
God will give us a new heart.
God will give us a new spirit.
God will put his Spirit within us, and thus cause us to walk in his statutes and obey his rules.
God will do all of this.
Be assured, dear friend, and receive a quiet and settled heart.
