Pride and Confession

            Bill, a very wise and prudent small business owner, saved up and paid for his son Matt’s college tuition two and a half years in advance.  He placed the money into a fixed college fund that could never be used for anything else.  Bill just needed to sign Matt’s name when the time came in order to release the money.  The boy was, at that time, a sophomore in High School in a very rural country area.  The pace of life in that small town of Buffalo was unusually laid back by the standards of other towns in this day and time.  There were no bars on the windows of homes or in the few small businesses of that town.  Many residents did not even lock their doors at night.  You knew everyone you met on the street or sidewalk.  A town party felt very much like a family reunion.  The older people would reminisce about their younger days while the younger people would listen, soaking up all of their stories that have grown taller and funnier every year.   

            Everything seemed to be going just fine for Matt until right before the current school year ended.  Then it happened.  Three new kids showed up during the month of May.  These new kids were very different in the minds of these laid back country kids.  They wore strange but cool clothes and spoke these new phrases that shocked yet excited the senses of many of the boys and girls of that school.  Many, including Matt, started wishing that they were more like these new boys and began imitating their words and actions.   

          Matt had always been somewhat of a follower, never able to say no to his peers in the fear that he would be rejected by them in some way.  He didn’t understand that by saying no, they would immediately test him on his convictions but then if he was able to withstand the trials, they would ultimately respect him greatly.  More solid relationships would come out of it.  However, it is difficult to see past the present situation when you are the one in the middle of the turmoil.   

          Matt saw many of his peers becoming excited over the ways of these new kids not knowing or caring that this kind of excitement is sometimes short lived.  These new boys grew up as un-respectful, filthy mouthed youngsters and were becoming more rebellious as time went on.  Yet Matt found this to be surprisingly exciting.  He found the effect they had on his peers to be intoxicating.  Over the course of that summer, he hung out with them, learned from them - became one of them.  

          Where Matt had once thought that his peers did not really see him as one of their equals, he now felt that he had their full attention.  He could be the life of the party by his loud filthy talk and be relaxed in doing so by the help of alcohol and drugs.  Matt didn’t understand that many were becoming tired of him and his new friend’s actions and attitudes.  They were becoming a joke in the minds of his old peers.  They were becoming dangerous to be around for they were daring each other to go further and further in their rebellion.  They were drinking far too much as well as thinking too much about exploring even riskier behavior such as dealing drugs and petty theft.  They did not realize that what they thought about most, they were destined to do.  A person will always take all the right paths to realize what they think about most.  Some of these kids eventually served time for their actions.  

          Matt didn’t understand that his old friends liked him for who he once was.  He thought that because he wasn’t the one that was the center of attention he therefore wasn’t liked.  In a very short time, he traded in a lifetime of respect he had unknowingly attained for a few moments of attention.  He was now part of a group that became the scum of the town.  By the end of his junior year in high school, no one was now excited by his behavior but was sickened and appalled by every word that proceeded out of his mouth.  The only dates that he could find were girls with absolutely no moral upbringing and were willing to do what ever any boy wanted.    

          The pace at which he went through this change in attitude was incredibly quick. Matt’s dad hardly had a chance to notice before running headlong into the full problem.  Bill was called to the school in December to find out that his son had been suspended for talking back aggressively to a teacher.  He was out for one week.  Matt blamed everyone else including the teacher.  At first Bill believed his son.  Then the incidents began to occur more often.  Bill found out that Matt was skipping school on a regular basis.  He was now on the verge of failing.   

          Matt had been a nearly perfect student his whole life.  He always prided himself in maintaining a high grade point average.  Now he just didn’t seem to care.  Deep down, however, he did care.  He knew that circumstances had snowballed and that he was sliding down at a very steep quick pace.  How could he stop now?  Why did it matter?  Why couldn’t people just accept him as he is?  Yet was this who he is or was it the person he was two years before?  Is the old person really gone?  He had so many inner questions.  He could hardly remember the old Matt himself – only that he had at one time felt somehow more relaxed and peaceful.   

          Matt needed to see that he had turned himself into exactly the person that he thought he was two years before – a boy that was not liked much and not respected.  He had dwelled on that fallacy all of his life and he took all the right roads that actually led him to that conclusion.  Matt never understood that his old friends had really liked him very much as he was.  He needed to hear now how they reminisced sadly to each other about the old Matt and how much they used to like him and how it was a shame that he had changed.  Yet if he had heard, pride would have kicked in and in defense Matt would have yelled the question “Why can’t you just like me for who I am now!”  Pride does not admit mistakes but hinders growth by not allowing a change for the better.  Pride dwells on the here and now and does not care what the future holds.  Pride causes many to die before allowing life saving behavior modifications.  

          Matt was once part of a body of friends whose members seemed to all have their place.  Some were at the head and some were at the foot, yet all were important to the group as a whole.  When Matt changed, the group lost an important part of the body.  It was like gaining a new member that at first had moved up in the body temporarily but then became a sore that continued to fester until the body rejected it altogether.  The other body parts were in danger of being infected themselves.  This body of friends will always miss their former member just as a person’s body will always miss/remember and grieve for a part that has been cut off.  They, however, did not miss the sore that he had become to them.  

          Matt, having barely completed enough credits to graduate, was now on the verge of a breakdown.  At one time he had had so many hopes and dreams about the future.  They were now flooding into his conscience, torturing him, taunting him.  They now seemed so entirely unattainable.  He just knew that he had blown every opportunity that he would ever have of obtaining a good job, a good family and a wonderful life.  He thought about changing his ways, but it was always in a future sense.  “I need to change what I am doing,” he would say, “but I don’t know how.  I will start tomorrow”.  There was always another tomorrow.   

          He wanted desperately to fulfill his dream of attending college but knew he could never pay for it.  How could he?  His high school grades did not warrant any type of scholarship.  He just knew that his parents would never trust nor consider helping him in this endeavor.  He had treated them so horribly for so long.  Why would they help?  Matt did not know that his college education was already covered.  All he knew was that he wanted and needed to get on good terms again with his dad.  But by doing so, he knew he needed to admit his mistakes.  Matt was afraid that if he threw his pride away and asked for his father’s forgiveness, he would still be rejected and would then look like even more of a fool.  His solution was to try and improve his behavior by doing good things for his dad.  Yet, try as he might, he just could not do enough good stuff to clear his own conscience.  He could not ask his dad for all that college money and maybe never would.   

          Unknown to Matt was the fact that his college tuition was already covered.  His dad, before Matt’s change, had so much faith in his son’s potential that he already set aside all of the money needed to cover the cost of every one of his future educational expenses.  All Matt needed to do was ask for his father’s forgiveness and help.  Matt was afraid his father would say no.  Matt did not understand that the debt was already paid for.  His dad would not and could not reject him.  Why would he already irrevocably pay such a great price only to say “No” I won’t let you have it?  His father would then be made out to be a fool.  

          Bill desperately wanted Matt to ask for his help and forgiveness.  In reality, Bill had already forgiven him.  If Matt even looked like he was turning back, Bill would have embraced him and given his son anything and everything that he needed and more.  Admitting mistakes and asking for forgiveness is extremely difficult.  Forgiving ones self is the most difficult of all.  A person thinks that if he himself cannot forgive then why would anyone else.  Pride again.  It gets in the way of all human progress.  It seeks only to destroy.  It leaves people wallowing in the depths of their sins and mistakes with seemingly no way out.  Yet it takes only a few small determined heartfelt words to completely destroy all of the hurt and all of the mistakes.  “Father, will you please forgive me?  I place my life into your hands.”  The Father will say nothing other than “It’s already covered my son.”   

          Matt, in his last vestige of hope, gave up his pride and asked his father to forgive him.  His father forgave him and told him how his debt was already paid for and covered in full.  His father then signed his son’s name to the trust fund releasing it forever to him.  Matt eventually became a very successful business man leading a laid back contented life with his wife and children in that same small town of Buffalo.  

          So many people live under the bondage of sin year after year because of pride.  Christ forgives so easily yet it is so difficult for people to just admit their sins and ask for forgiveness.  Instead of humbling ones self daily before the Lord admitting failures, they somehow tell themselves that the Lord cannot forgive them.  Day after day, month after month the sin piles up.  Before long you are truly convinced that the Lord shouldn’t forgive you – least of all easily.  You begin, like Matt, to think that you should try to do enough good things first that it would make it easier for God to then forgive you.  But you find out that you can never be good enough to be forgiven.   

          How many millions have died in their sin because of pride?  “I have sinned.  Father please forgive me.”  Why is it so hard to just admit?  Jesus Christ already paid with His life for every sin that you have and will commit.  Men sometimes have a difficult time forgiving.  God does not have difficulty because God, unlike man, wants always to forgive.  Jesus would not have willfully suffered and died such an awful death bearing and paying for your sins already just to say “No, I won’t forgive your sin.”  His death would have been a foolish thing and God is no fool.  Just believe that He died on the cross for your sins and arose from the grave that you will have forgiveness, victory and everlasting life.   

          “I have sinned.  Father please forgive me.”  Humble yourselves before the Lord daily admitting your sin and asking His forgiveness.  Don’t let sin and guilt pile up.  Don’t let pride strip you of your victory and growth in Jesus.  He forgives easily those who humbly ask for His forgiveness.  Learn to ask.  Learn to admit failures.  He knows all of your faults and weaknesses and still seeks to forgive.  Just ask.  We sometimes feel that He has turned His back on us.  It is us in reality that has turned away.  Sin separates us from God but Christ’s blood wipes that veil of sin and separation away every time when we humbly pray – “I have sinned.  Father please forgive me.” 

Your Decision to Receive Christ as Your Savior:

    Confess to God that you are a sinner.  Believe that the Lord Jesus Christ died for your sins on the cross and was raised for your justification.  Receive and Confess Him as your personal Savior.   

Assurance As a Believer:

    That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved (Romans 10:9).

© 2002 G. R. Workman  

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