He has never once apologized to God about anything with edges on it.
He apologizes constantly. That is not the issue. He is one of the most repentant men you will meet and he would be genuinely bewildered by the suggestion that he is not.
But listen to the shape of it.
Forgive me for the ways I have failed You this week. I am sorry for my pride. For everything I have done and left undone.
Every one of those is true. Every one of those is also a container with nothing specific in it, and he has been using containers for about twenty-six years.
It took a colleague to show him, and she did not mean to. She was talking about an apology she had received from somebody at work and she said, offhand, that it was one of those apologies that apologizes for a category.
He went home and could not stop hearing it.
Because he could not remember, in twenty-six years, a single occasion of saying to God the actual sentence: on Tuesday, at about four, I did this specific thing to this specific person.
He has repented of pride. He has never repented of what he said in the car park in March.
So let me ask you.
When did you last apologize to God about something with edges on it?
The instruction contains a specification
There is a line in Leviticus that people skip because the surrounding chapters are about procedures, and I want it precisely because of how procedural it is.
The law is describing what a person does when they become aware of something.
When anyone becomes aware that they are guilty in any of these matters, they must confess in what way they have sinned.Leviticus 5:5
Read the last five words. In what way they have sinned.
That is a specification. It is not a requirement to feel sorry, and it is not a requirement to acknowledge a category. It is an instruction to name the particular.
Leviticus 5 requires the manner to be stated rather than the general fact admitted, and the Spirit who gave that law knew exactly what a human being will do with a permission to be vague, so a category has never been the same thing as a confession.
Now I am going to be careful here, in the way this house always is, because Leviticus is a book that people misuse in several directions at once.
I am not making a claim about sacrificial systems or about what is required of anybody now, and I am not going to adjudicate one word of what anybody argues about concerning any of that, in any direction.
I am pointing at a habit of the human heart that the law had already noticed by that page.
Given the option, we will confess the class and protect the instance. It is not cowardice exactly. A category has no edges to catch on, and an instance has a date and a place and usually a person's face in it.
Leviticus 5 answers that by naming the manner as part of the requirement, and the Spirit was in that precision, which means twenty-six years of accurate general apologies have kept every particular thing safely out of the room.
You have repented of pride. You have not repented of March.
Now here is the move, and it is one specification long.
Put the edges back on.
Say the day. Say the place. Say what you actually said or did, in the words you used, rather than the class of thing it belongs to.
You are not being asked to confess more, or more often, or more severely. Twenty-six years is plenty and the general apologies were never lies.
You are being asked to say one particular thing particularly.
Leviticus 5 requires a person to confess in what way, and the Spirit was in that specification rather than in any severity, so the vagueness has never been humility and the detail has never been morbid.
One instance. With a date on it.
Declare this over yourself
Say these where you can hear yourself. Know what holds them up. This authority is not yours by nature, it is Christ's, and in Christ it has been given to you, so you speak as one representing the King. And you speak under His will, never over it. However He answers, and in whatever way He comes, the outcome is His.
- General, you are a shape I chose so that nothing would have edges on it. Leviticus 5 says they must confess in what way they have sinned, and in what way is a specification and not a feeling.
- Twenty-six years of true apologies with nothing particular in them, you were never lies and you have kept every instance out of the room, and in the name of Jesus you are finished. The Spirit who gave that law knew exactly what a person does with permission to be vague.
- Lord, Leviticus 5 puts the manner into the requirement, so the detail was never morbid and the vagueness was never humility. I am saying one thing with a day and a place in it tonight, and I have repented of pride and never once of March.
Leviticus 5:5
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