If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9, NIV)
Part of what makes golf different is that you can call a penalty on yourself. Even if an NBA player knew he had fouled an opponent and tried to admit this to the referee, that official would look at him funny and say, “Well, I didn’t see it.”
I played in a club tournament recently and my opponent came up to me on the seventeenth hole and said, “I need to take a one-stroke penalty. I accidently moved the ball.” He continued, “I could not play well with that guilt on my mind if I did not call the penalty on myself.” He was confessing his doing wrong and by confessing to me, he felt so much better. Whether or not he won the match didn’t matter; his integrity was most important.
I complimented him for his honesty, then began to change the conversation by explaining that the “I” in LINKS stands for “Integrate Christ’s reign and integrity into all of life.” We proceeded to discuss what Links Players is all about. I invited him to our Links Fellowship, and he said he would love to attend!
I love a clean golf ball, so why wouldn’t I want a clean me?Looking at today’s scripture verse, we find that if we confess our sins to the Lord we encounter two of his great attributes: He is faithful and just. Because he is so, he forgives our sins.
A Links Player told me the other day that this is one of his favorite verses because it reminds him how good our God is—that God is full of mercy and grace. I knew what he meant; I once heard it said that the word just shows us that God is merciful.
If God gave me the kind of justice I really deserve, it would be punishment. Sins should come with consequences. And sometimes they do, for this can be God’s way of reminding us of the real nature of our wrongdoing.
But God doesn’t just dispense justice. He is just. That is, he takes all of what he knows about us into account. And one thing he remembers is that we are dust (Psalm 103:14). We’re weak people who struggle with temptation and sin. But from David the psalmist to John the apostle, the idea doesn’t change. Just two verses before Psalm 103:14, we read this well-known verse: “As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.” From the Old Testament to the New, God is there to forgive us!
With that promise in front of us, we should be quick to confess. I love a clean golf ball, so why wouldn’t I want a clean me? When I confess my sins, God will forgive me and purify me from all unrighteousness.
This faithful and just God of ours is true to his promises. That he will forgive us when we confess our sins to him is a promise we should take him up on every chance we get!
—
Dereck Wong
November 12, 2018
Copyright 2018 Links Players International
The Links Daily Devotional appears Monday-Friday at www.linksplayers.com.