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Key Bible Verse: Have I tried to hide my sins as people normally do, hiding my guilt in a closet? ( Job 31:33). Bonus Reading: Psalm 32:1-5

Early in our marriage we sold our Volkswagen to buy our first really nice piece of furniture. It was a pink sofa. But for that kind of money it was called mauve.

So the Number One Rule in our house became, "On every chair in the house you may freely sit, but on the mauve sofa you may not sit, for the day you sit thereon, you will surely die!"

One day a red jelly stain appeared on the mauve sofa. My wife called the man at the furniture store. Then she assembled our three children: Laura, then 4, Mallory, 2 1/2 , and Johnny, 6 months. "Children," she said, "do you see that? That's a jelly stain. The man at the store says it's not coming out for all eternity. Do you know how long eternity is? That's how long we're going to sit here until one of you tells me who stained the sofa."

For a long time they just sat there. Finally Mallory cracked. "Laura did it," she said. "No, I didn't!" Laura protested. Then there was dead silence for the longest time. I knew no one would confess because they'd never seen their mom so mad, because they knew whoever did, would spend forever in the timeout chair, and because … I was the one who stained the sofa, and I wasn't saying nuthin'! Not a word!

— John Ortberg in The Art and Craft of Biblical Teaching

My Response: An issue in my life about which I, too, am stonewalling is …

Thought to Apply: The way to cover our sin is to uncover it by confession.—RICHARD STIBBS

Adapted from The Art and Craft of Biblical Teaching (Zondervan, 2005) by permission.

Copyright © 2006 by the author or Christianity Today International/Men of Integrity magazine. Click here for reprint information on Men of Integrity.

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Prayer for the Week

Forgive me, Lord, for presuming to receive deliverance from the penalty of sin without an all-out effort to cooperate with You in escaping its power.

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