Ignited

But if we confess our sins to him, he can be depended on to forgive us and to cleanse us from every wrong. And it is perfectly proper for God to do this for us because Christ died to wash away our sins. (I John 1:9 TLB)

Depended upon - that means our part is to rely upon him. If you depend upon your vehicle to start when you turn over the ignition, you are relying on the battery to have held a charge, the alternator to do the work of assisting in providing all the amperage needed to support all those other electrical components in the vehicle, and the engine's components to all 'turnover' in response to your having hit that ignition switch. For us, the 'ignition switch' is our confession. The power ignited in response to that confession is to be relied upon - without failure, or need of calling 'roadside service' because it may 'fail' one day!

Have you ever hit the ignition more than one time, only to hear the grinding effect of the engine trying to 'restart' when it was already running? The grinding of the parts being set in motion once again that don't need to be in motion gets our attention to remind us things are already in motion under the hood! When we confess the same sins to God time and time again, either because we have a hard time remembering our forgiveness has already set things in motion in our lives, or because we just don't rely upon his work to be finished within us, we are creating a similar scenario. While God doesn't 'grind out his protest' like our engine might, I can imagine he groans inwardly because he has already forgiven us for that offense we keep bringing up time and time again to him!

When we ask for God's grace, he extends it - reliably and consistently. He isn't subject to the wear and tear like an engine parts are subject to, so he doesn't fail to 'deliver' when we 'hit the ignition' of confession. What is 'set in motion' at the moment of our confession remains in motion. If we don't always see or 'hear' his action on our behalf, it is nonetheless there - because the cross is reliable beyond all influences to stop its effect! The cry of our hearts for forgiveness are met with the action of Christ to clean and renew - period! Timeless grace - eternal forgiveness - absolute cleansing. Reliable each time. Just sayin!

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