Bottling the Spirit

Do not save all of your sins up for Sunday. If you come here with a pile of sins to confess then you must confess all of those sins and the sin of waiting until now to confess them. This confession in this service is to remind you to be always confessing your sins immediately as you are confronted with them. And in the off chance that you walked in here this morning huffing and puffing about something or another make it right now. And if you snapped at your husband or wife or one of the kids at the soonest opportunity ask their forgiveness. Confession of sin does not happen only once in the Christian life. There is not just one cataclysmic conversion with tears and long laundry list of sins to confess and viola! You’re a Christian and it’s all good. Sometimes God does confront people like Paul in a sudden mid-life sort of way which presents the need for a great mountain of confession at that point. But the entire Christian life, which normally lasts from your baptism when you were a newborn baby to your last dying breath in old age is an entire life of conversion, an entire life of confession and repentance. Saving sins up for Sunday is a miniature version of revivalism, the heresy that thinks it can put the Spirit of God in a bottle only to be unleashed on Wednesday nights from 7 to 9pm. You are the temples of the Holy Spirit. Do not quench the Spirit by saving sin up, and thereby cluttering up your Temple. Confess your sins regularly, constantly, continually offering the sacrifices of God which are a humble and contrite spirit.