The way to us beginning a fresh start and having a clear conscience starts with repentance.Repentance means three things:
1. We take responsibility for our sin.
2. We turn away from those things.
3. We turn toward God and His grace.

The Bible says, “Let us test and examine our ways. Let us turn back to the Lord. Let us lift our hearts and hands to God in heaven and say, ‘We have sinned and rebelled’” (Lamentations 3:40-42 NLT).

Repentance doesn’t mean rationalizing your sin. We mustn’t think, “It was no big deal.” It was a big deal, or we wouldn’t have remembered it. And don’t say, “It happened so long ago” or “It was just a stage I went through” or “Everybody does it.” We can’t rationalize sin, minimize it, excuse it, or blame others. This is not true repentance. We need to pay attention to the fact that the greatest hinderance to the healing of our hang-up is ourself. We’re not waiting on God or anyone else. God is ready and wanting to heal the hang-up in our life.
The Word of God says in 1 John 1:8, “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us” (NIV).

If we want to get rid of the self-defeating habits in our life then we need to stop deceiving ourself. It starts with gut-level honesty and acknowledging that something is wrong, no matter how much we want to rationalize it and excuse it. We need to admit our sin, confess it, and get it out of our life.
Today take that first step of repentance and get on the path to a fresh start.
Erick Bouwmeester
#lovebeyondchurch
#lovebeyondwordsministry
#lovebeyondwords