I Lied

Scripture:
You know the commandments: Do not murder; do not commit adultery; do not steal; do not bear false witness; do not defraud; honor your father and mother." (Mark 10:19)

How frequent it is that opportunities come up when we need to bring to light the truth but we let things go by, or we "slip" and do not communicate the truth. I am sure you know what I mean. Somebody asks you a question that they really should not have asked, or you feel it is really none of their business, so you give them an answer without really answering their question. Why? Because you don't want to say anything that will put them off, and at the same time you don't want to answer the question. So you either say something that is not really true or you let the believe something that you know is not the truth, for whatever reason. Am I not correct about this?

Well today that happened to me. Now I try to really, really hard to always say the truth and sometimes I hold back for a good and loving reason and reveal the truth later, but today I got cornered. Basically it had to do with something that I should have done but forgot, and when asked point blank, I did not give a direct answer because I did not want it known that I did not do something. But it did not stop there, then someone else asked me more directly and I said yes, when I should have said no.

Now the good part about all this is that, the only thing that was damaged was me, but it is amazing how much it bothers me, and I am glad. One of the things I learned in the conference is how important it is to protect the anointing of the Holy Spirit of God and sin damages that anointing. We are told in Ephesians 4:30 to "do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God" and that "all liars will have their place will be in the fiery lak.e" (Revelations 21:8)

Now I am convinced this one sin does not qualify me for that latter of these two verses but I am absolutely sure that it did hurt the anointing of God by grieving the Holy Spirit because I felt it. Not only did my conscience bother me, but I could feel a difference in me and though I confessed it immediately to God, I know that sometimes we have to fix things better then that. What do I mean?

In some cases God requires us to make restitution for our wrong. Many places in the Law it says, "he must make full restitution" particularly when someone else suffers damage because of our wrong doing. In other cases, the sin is either against God or even against ones own self. 1 Corinthians 6:18 tells us that "every sin a person can commit is outside the body, but the person who is sexually immoral sins against his own body." That includes sins in our mind. Like Jesus said in Matthew 5:28, that "everyone who looks at a woman (or man) to lust for her (or him) has already committed adultery." So what should we do?

The first thing is that if our relationship is right before God then any sin, no matter how "small" it should hurt our conscience and we should feel the grieving of the Holy Spirit. If not I think there is a more serious problem to be dealt with. The second thing is to confess our sin and "He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." The third thing is to make restitution, if harm has come to another, and sometimes in Scripture a restitution offering was required. Now this maybe hard to do, but the Scriptures make it very clear how important restitution is by saying "if he is unable (to make restitution), he is to be sold " (Exodus 22:3), that is into slavery, and that "the law of the restitution offering ... is especially holy." (Leviticus 7:1)

Request:
That the Holy Spirit of God will help us keep our lives and hearts and minds pure and the anointing strong.

Prayer:
Dear Lord, forgive us for not telling the truth and thank you for giving us the Holy Spirit whom we can feel greiving when we sin so that we restore our relationship with you and make restitution to those we have harmed.