While It's Still A Secret

It's good to ask God to search our hearts and highlight the hidden things that do not please Him. The point is not simply to discover our sinfulness or inclination towards any ungodliness, but also to repent and have Him bring life-giving correction.

Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.
See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
Psalm 139:23-24

If we submitted regularly and wholeheartedly to this process, we would find ourselves walking ever closer to the Lord because the pure in heart shall see the Lord (Matt. 5:8). An upright life with a heart that is constantly humbled, searched, and taught by God also protects us from falling into the many snares of the enemy and his agents. After all, temptations to sin lay hold of evil or idolatrous desires within our hearts and entice us to act on them (James 1:12-15). By submitting first to God, we will be able to successfully resist the devil (James 4:7). God will add the grace that we need to overcome.

Keep me from the snares they have laid for me,
And from the traps of the workers of iniquity.
Psalm 141:9

As believers in Christ Jesus, if we sin, the Holy Spirit graciously convicts us of our sins privately. There is no one in the Body of Christ who has been 'exposed' publicly, whose sin God revealed to a group or multitude, unless that person had already resisted the grace of God that had been calling them to confession with full and true repentance. God is not in the business of humiliating us. The only thing attached to the experience of sin that the Lord takes pleasure in is our repentance and reconciliation to Himself. Therefore, if there are ugly and ungodly things hidden in our heart and life, we should not delay to lay hold of the great grace of God, and repent quickly.

Clearly, God is committed to our sanctification and makes grace available for us to be conformed to Christ. Let us do what the writer to the Hebrews exhorts, and ask for mercy and grace to help us in our time of need (Heb. 4:15-16). Then, we will be able to deal with sinful inclinations preemptively, and for sins committed privately, as James Robison says, we may "repent while it's still a secret" and be turned back from destruction.