Genesis 3:9 And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?

Years ago I cute a finger badly. The doctor stitched it up and it healed but a nerve was severed. I lost feeling in that finger. Blood flowed, the finger moved, the nail grew, but I did not feel it. I lost sensitivity to touch.

This example is why God asked Adam where are you. Adam was still there, God could see Adam, but the spirit died within Adam, just like the severed nerve. Adam still had the blood flowing, the natural life continued to grow, like my finger. But God lost Adam’s sensitivity to the spirit.

Eventually the nerves grew back together. They found a way to find each other and restore feeling, gradually. So it is with those who are quickened in the spirit, made alive in Christ. Since the finger was alive and moved all that time before the nerve was reunited, it did not know that it was lost to the body. My brain knew what was lost, not my finger. God knows if you are lost, but until you become born again, you will not know you were lost to God.

“Where art thou?” God is seeking the lost to hear His voice and to become reunited in the spirit. Walking around and doing things doesn’t make you alive. Mending that severed connection is what makes us alive.

John 1:12-13 But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

Restored sonship, now that is living.

Leviticus 5:1 And if a soul sin, and hear the voice of swearing, and is a witness, whether he hath seen or known of it; if he do not utter it, then he shall bear his iniquity.

I’ve been hearing about rights of privacy for some time. We live in a society which prides itself on individual’s rights. We have the right to privacy, self-incrimination is protected by law. By the law you do not have to confess.

Biblically speaking you have the right to avoid self-incrimination also, but God warns us that we shall bear the iniquity. It is a burden that wears upon the soul. It is a consequence of keeping secret those things you know are wrong. That is why Leviticus 5:1 includes the line, “hear the voice of swearing”. Your soul bears witness to your sin.

Can you live with that knowledge? Is it possible to have an evil conscience? Hebrews 10:22 says we all had one until we confessed Christ. Yet Christians still sin, some of ignorance and some of conviction. The same rule applies, if our conscience knows, we bear the burden if we do not confess.

James 5:16 Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.

Let me share a truth with you. There are no secrets. You know and God knows. If it is a burden on your soul God has every intension of restoring you to a position of right standing before Him. The weight of unconfessed sin only gets heavier and that is why He sent His Son to carry that burden away.

Hebrews 12:1-3 Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds.