If I had not confessed the sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened. But God did listen! He paid attention to my prayer.
Psalm 66:18-19 (NLT)
I once had a man tell me that he couldn’t remember the last time he’d lied. I asked him if he had a childhood. He responded yes. I then asked if he ever lied as a child. He said that he couldn’t remember. So, there we were, for the next five or so minutes, with him bragging about how he had never lied. I got tired of the topic, so I switched it up and asked him if he could remember the last time that he was prideful. He didn’t get it.
Bragging about our sinlessness is, in fact, a sin. Puffing ourselves up to make ourselves look good is prideful. Now, don’t get me wrong, we should be proud of accomplishments in life – I’m proud of my kids, for example. However, when we are stating things to make ourselves look better than others, we’ve crossed the line from taking joy in an accomplishment to being full of ourselves. When we do so, we are following in the footsteps of Lucifer (Satan), himself.
Lucifer’s sin is that he wanted to be God. He got jealous of Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and the Father, and decided that he would be a better king of the universe. Pride got ahold of him. To this day, Satan still thinks he would be a better king of the universe than God. Except now all of that pride has led Satan to do and say evil things. Pride destroys the soul.
King David was no stranger to those “oops” moments in life. He even battled pride from time-to-time. Yet, David routinely humbled himself and admitted that he was, indeed, a sinner in need of a Savior. In our verse today, David wrote, “If I had not confessed the sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened. But God did listen! He paid attention to my prayer.”
In other words, if we are approaching God and telling Him what to do, what to fix, what to forgive, etc. then we are full of pride. We’re trying to do His job, or we’re treating Him like our own, personal, magic genie. Instead, as David tells us, we must approach God with humility. We must admit we are sinners in need of a Savior. It’s only then that our prayers are heard and action taken on our behalf.
So, today, and every day, humble yourself before the Lord. Admit your sin (even those secret sins no one else knows about) and praise Him for His forgiveness.
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