Baptized With Better Names

Most of us aren't struggling with whether to murder someone. The battle is whether we'll call our pride pride.

That's where self-deception lives — not in the sins nobody defends, but in the respectable ones we've baptized with better names. We confess the surface stuff. But beneath that sits something we've never named.

The bitterness we call being realistic.The pride we call dedication.The self-promotion we call ministry.The criticism we call discernment.

John saw this coming. He wasn't writing to pagans in 1 John 1. He was writing to believers — people who knew the right answers, used the right language, and still lied to themselves about who they were.

If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in him. – 1 John 1:8

When we rename our sin, John has one word for it: self-deception.

We spend our energy managing appearances until we lose track of what's true. We start believing our own press. The mental replays where we're always the hero. The double standards — ruthless with them, lenient with us. The quiet resentment when someone else's name gets called.

God isn't impressed by the rename. He sees the sin.

Confession isn't groveling. It's agreeing with God about reality. Calling your sin sin. Ending the argument.

He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. – 1 John 1:9

All of it. Even the sins you gave a better name.