Listen to Your Advocate, Not the Accuser

I was listening to a podcast recently where they were talking about a man who was released from prison after 23 years because DNA exonerated him. He was clearly innocent by the evidence, but here’s the thing: he had a lengthy, detailed confession of the crime. How is that possible? Who confesses to a crime they didn’t commit?

Here’s the rundown. The technique for coaxing confession is to place the suspect at the scene mentally. They ask questions like, “if you were there, hypothetically, how do you think it happened?” They show photos, tell you what a great help you are being, keep you from food, sleep and water until you are delirious, and then tell you if you just say what they need you to say in order to be helpful to the case, you can go home and this will be over.

Just like that, you can even be convinced that maybe you were there. Maybe you are even guilty.

In my life, I have asked hypothetical questions of myself, and I have an enemy all too willing to fill in the blanks and suggest fearful scenarios. I have looked at photos of other women, then photos of myself, and had more questions. Whispers, innuendoes, Instagram, television, misconceptions and misperceptions between myself and loved ones… the world is speaking to us all the time, filling in blanks we don’t take the time to fill with truth.

I found I had created a false narrative about myself in which I was lacking the strength and wisdom to withstand the fiery darts of my enemies, and not deserving of divine intervention.

My theories about my life are filled with holes until I get face-to-face with the Holy One. My confessions are incomplete and false unless they bear the mark of the One who is the truth, the way, and the light.

My number one false confession? That I am guilty. If something is going wrong, either I caused it, or I’m the one responsible to fix it. Sometimes a woman can think of this as a form of godliness, but it is a false confession for crimes we did not commit. It wrestles the situation away from Jesus, who is our advocate and pleads our case before God (1 John 2:1). His plan for redemption is freedom from all forms of imprisonment; mental, spiritual, and physical. Yet we often find ourselves just there, confused as to how it happened.

Jesus does not just desire us to be free, He needs us free. There is a purpose for your life, and it starts with knowing who you are and what that means. Make your daily confession to be that you are the redeemed of the Lord, bought with His blood and here by grace, in the time and place meant for you, to possess the fullness of the gospel and walk in it a free woman (Eph. 3:18-19).

You will not be coaxed into any confessions other than truthful ones when you know who you are in the light of God’s truth.

Reflection

Are there any false narratives you may have about your worth?
In what areas might you be operating under your own strength and understanding instead of the Father’s?
What are the areas of greatest weakness for you that make it hard to hear truth?

Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ.

(Ephesians 4:14-15 NIV)