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Are You Ready For An Episode of Spiritual Hoarders?


Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. (James 5:16)

          Part of getting ready for a new year is dealing with the old. Most of us end up with at least a few regrets, or a few strained relationships by the end of the year. We know we shouldn’t have done this, or said that. What may seem worse is not what we have done, but what has been done to us. The end of 2017 is a great time to deal with those sins that are separating us from God or from one another. It may take asking forgiveness. It may require forgiving. The point is to enter 2018 without things hanging over our heads.
          It’s best to do this as soon as it happens, but I’m I, and you are you, and chances are we not only haven’t done it as it happened, or even the day it happened. Chances are there are things that have piled up. We didn’t mean to. We put a sin on our desk, planning to deal with it soon. Then there were four or five on the desk and we needed the desk, so we put them on a shelf. Others ended up on the floor by the door. The next thing we know, someone is suggesting our lives for an episode of spiritual Hoarders.
           I’m not suggesting that you should provide a list of your particular sins in the comments, but there is power in confessing to someone. It may be a paradox, but claiming your sin can take its power over you away. It can help you stop pretending. It can be the means of bringing you back together with the one that the sin separated you from.

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