iConfess

by Joshua updated on add a comment

All right…so the next time you feel burdened down with your load of sins, iHave the perfect solution for you (no pun intended, but since I left it, I guess it becomes intentional). iThink you just might like this…Actually, iDidn’t come up with this solution but iAm referring you to it. Introducing (drum roll please) the new confession app for the iPhone, appropriately named “Confession: A Roman Catholic App“. That’s right. If you sin, you can go straight to your iPhone to take care of your problem and entirely bypass any other system. Bye-bye confession booths- you have gone out of style.

But seriously, how much time and money does it take you to go to your local Catholic confession booth and confess your sins to the priest? This popular app is available for a one-time fee of $1.99! Come on, how can you turn that down? It’s inexpensive, convenient, and includes the following:

-Custom examination of Conscience based upon age, sex, and vocation (single, married, priest, or religious)
– Multiple user support with password protected accounts
– Ability to add sins not listed in standard examination of conscience
– Confession walkthrough including time of last confession in days, weeks, months, and years
– Choose from 7 different acts of contrition
– Custom interface for iPad
– Full retina display support
(http://www.appsafari.com/religion/15493/confession-a-roman-catholic-app/)

Now understand that this app in no way gives you a license to sin. Just because you now have a “fold-out” confession booth tucked neatly away in your pocket doesn’t mean you can sin whenever and just pull out your phone when you’re finished with your deed. One other thing, in case you’re worried someone else might find out about your sins, it is designed with security features to protect your data so only you and your phone will know what you’ve been up to. Still, that doesn’t give you a right to just sin whenever and to any extent.

Okay, seriously though, I will be serious now. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? This is not a joke, but then again, it is. Some clever person has successfully melded man’s depravity with, well, man’s depravity (addiction to apps) and the result is this app for confessing your sins in a more convenient manner. I don’t have the time or sanity to get into an explanation behind the whole history and significance of Catholic confession booths, but suffice it to say that they are unnecessary anyway. The booths and the app are both things that we don’t need. But how will we confess our sins then?

As always, God has come up with the perfect solution. Any surprise? Check it out: “Therefore, in all things He had to be made like His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people” (Hebrews 2:17, NKJV). We have immediate access to God to confess our sins! That’s right, GOD! The Creator of the World,

Striving to Be an Abomination

by Joshua updated on add a comment

Not the average goal for a born-again believer, huh? But why not? It’s a worthy goal on second thought, is it not?
Perhaps an explanation would be helpful here before you entirely tune me out. Proverbs 29:27 says, “An unjust man is an abomination to the righteous, and he who is upright in the way is an abomination to the wicked” (NKJV). Does that clear up any confusion you might have had?
After reading this verse in my personal devotions with God one day, I thought to myself, “I want to be an abomination!” Of course, I want to be an abomination of the latter sort- “an abomination to the wicked.” Oh may I never be “an abomination to the righteous.” Those are the ones whom I wanted to be counted among.
For the past several months, I have been working on memorizing the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapters 5-7. It has been slow going, but I’m learning from it, thus fulfilling the main objective. As I meditate on the significance of Proverbs 29:27, I can’t help but also think of Matthew 5:11-12 which says, “Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before me” (NKJV).
My desire is not to go around and to make everyone hate me, but rather to be so much like Christ and so much unlike the world that the world doesn’t like it. If Christ is repulsive to sinful mankind then I want the same to be true of me. At the same time, I want to be an abomination in such a way that the unsaved see their own sinful condition and the abomination that they are to God.
The bottom line? “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God” (Romans 12:2, NKJV).
God, make me an abomination to the wicked so that I may expose others to your glory.