Baggage

One of my favorite parts of an airport is the baggage conveyor belt. I like watching my suitcase disappear through the plastic flaps.  I’ve always wanted to hop a ride on that conveyor belt to see where it goes. But in an effort to not get “randomly selected” for a special search every time I fly I just stick to the moving sidewalks. It’s sort of the same concept. Anyway, it’s just nice to know that someone else is throwing carrying my bag for me. And when I arrive at my destination there is such joy in seeing my suitcase magically re-appear through more plastic flaps on another conveyor belt. In one piece…Hopefully…

There’s another type of baggage that needs to be put on the conveyor belt and never picked back up: unconfessed sin.

For the follower of Christ, the baggage of unconfessed sin is a hindrance that keeps us from running the race effectively.

In Hebrews 12:1 (NLT) we are encouraged to: “…strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up…”  Sin happens. Even for the believer. But what we do about it has a huge impact on our service to Christ.

It’s baggage we all carry. Sometimes we hold on to it as if it were something precious. It slow us down and keep us from experiencing true freedom. Our guilty conscience keeps us from freely running after Christ. We think things like “I can’t tell them about Jesus, look at what I’ve done,” or “I’d like to serve, but I’m embarrassed about my past.”

But there’s great news! Romans 8:1 (NLT) “So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus.” In other words, once you’ve confessed your sins to the Lord, He doesn’t hold them against you! In fact Psalm 103:12 (NLT) says “He has removed our sins as far from us as the east is from the west.” And in 2 Corinthians 5:17 (NLT) we find that “…anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” If all these things are true, why do we hold on to the guilt of sin? Why don’t we freely confess our sins? 1 John 1:9 (NLT) says “…if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.”

David gave us a great picture of the process of conviction, confession, and restoration in Psalm 32 (click to read for yourself). It took honesty and humility for David to confess his sin to God. When he held it in, it literally wore him down from the inside out. But when he confessed, God forgave him and restored joy to him. David still had the consequences of his sin, but he was able to move on because his guilt was taken away. The Bible later said that David was a man after God’s own heart.

If we can only learn how to be that honest and humble when it comes to confessing our sin to God, we can run this race with freedom.

So what baggage do you need to check?