Category: Confession

This week we are focusing on confession, forgiveness, and fasting and all that entails.  We completed our examination prep and the first step of confession to God.  Today I want to talk about confessing to others.

Confession—what is it?  When you need to confess a sin to someone else, take time for preparation and prayer before plunging ahead.  Just like a kid who apologizes because a parent or teacher says they have to, you don’t want it to sound insincere or forced.  Confession to another person might look different depending on the situation, the person, and the timing between when it happened and when you’re confessing.

Confession—to whom?  The Bible is very clear about that.  Confess your sins to one another.  Now that does not mean you confess to Jane what you did to Mary.  It means you confess to Mary what you did to Mary.  The sin is between the two of you and no one else unless someone saw or heard what happened.  Then an added confession may be needed to clear the air for everyone involved.  That’s something else to pray about.

Why?  There’s nothing worse than trying to avoid someone because you know there’s something between you, especially if they don’t know your part in it.  Coming clean about your sin allows a relationship with that person to be restored as well as your relationship with God to be restored.  Just confessing to God is only the first step.  Taking the second step towards the person you’ve sinned against is harder, but if you pray about it beforehand, God will take care of the results.  You may be afraid of what their response will be, but don’t be…just leave the results in God’s hands.

Confessing breaks the power of sin and Satan over our lives.  Covering up sin doesn’t profit anything, but confessing brings release of sin’s power, forgiveness, and restoration.  If we don’t confess our sin, it isolates us from others and God.  Having a clear conscience is also very important in an unspotted witness to the world.  Don’t give anyone a chance to defame you or the Lord nor criticize you due to unconfessed sin.  Confessing is not just for ourselves, but also so that others will not be able to find fault in us.

“Keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak
Maliciously against your good behavior in Christ
may be ashamed of their slander.”
1 Peter 3:16, NIV

When?  I don’t think there’s any specific guidelines as to when to confess to other people, but the sooner, the better.  If you let it go, sin is still present in your heart until you take that second step of confessing to the other person.  If it is something that just happened, it’s best to take care of it right away.  I’ve read too many books and watched too many movies where someone was wronged and it almost destroyed a relationship.  But when the person who sinned finally went and confessed, the relationship was restored.  If it’s something that took place a long, long time ago, it’s not exempt, but you will most likely need to bathe it in extended prayer before digging up the past which in itself is usually painful.

However, one time frame that the Bible does mention about confession is in the following verse:

“So if you are presenting a sacrifice at the altar in the Temple
and you suddenly remember that someone has something against you,
leave your sacrifice there at the altar.
Go and be reconciled to that person.
Then come and offer your sacrifice to God.”
Matthew 5:23–24, NLT

So before you present yourself for worship, service, or participating in the Lord’s Supper is definitely a time when confession should be a priority.

Results.  A clear conscience and a restored relationship with the other person and God are the best results I can think of.  Any other reason is merely complimentary or an added bonus. 

For the next two days we’ll look at forgiveness and then prayer and fasting.

PRAYER POINT FOR TODAY:
Lord, it is so hard to go to another person and tell them the wrong I’ve done/said, but please give me Your strength to take that necessary step, and prepare the way.

• Week 1 – temptation
• Week 2 – confession, forgiveness, and fasting
• Week 3 – listening to God and answering when He calls
• Week 4 – God’s love for us
• Week 5 – waiting, anxiety, and trust
• Week 6 – suffering, pain, and struggles
• Easter – resurrection and salvation

This week we are focusing on confession, forgiveness, and fasting and all that entails.  Yesterday was our examination prep, so we should be ready for the test.  Today I want to talk about confessing to God and tomorrow I’ll talk about confessing to others.

Confession—what is it?  Ask a child and they might say Sorry!  Well, that’s definitely part of confession, but not all of it.  There needs to be more than just Sorry.  Be specific.  What are you sorry about?  What did you do or say?  What did you not do or say that you should have?  The sin of omission is just as wrong as the sin of commission.  The Israelites had been grumbling against the Lord and giving their leader Samuel a hard time.  He told them in part (I Samuel 7:3), “If you really want to turn back to the Lord, then prove it…”  Then they confessed their sin.

Confession—to whom?  Our sins can affect many people, a few, or only one person.  But before we confess to anyone else, we need to talk with God about it.  All sin is against God first of all, so He is the One we need to start our confession with.  You may need someone to talk it over with who can help you realize what you did and the extent of its effect on others, but ultimately our primary confession of sin is to God—not a clergy, counselor, or anyone else.  God is the One who forgives sin and clears our record in the Book of Life.

So now confess your sin to the LORD,
the God of your ancestors,
and do what he demands.
Ezra 10:11, NLT

Why?  Why not?  He already knows anyway!  Why wouldn’t you want to confess your sins to God?  Would you rather carry them around like a heavy backpack, weighing you down?  It hinders our relationship with God when there’s sin between us.  By confessing our sins, we are telling God that we’ve done something wrong.  When your child does something he’s not supposed to do, do you drag it out of them or let them come to you first?  Depending on the person, it could work either way.  The end result is confession, but it’s always better if it comes out willingly.  God will not force us into confession and submission, but He will make it very uncomfortable in our conscience until we’ve ‘fessed up.  I’d rather have a clear conscience than that niggling inside.

When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away
Through my groaning all day long.
Psalm 32:3, NASB

When?  God has His ways of working on and in us.  When He knows there is something wrong between us, He sends us messages through our conscience, friends, a message we hear, something we read, or any variety of means.  If we really want to be honest, even the lost person on the street hears a bell go off in their brain like an alarm when they do something they shouldn’t.  That should be the time for us to stop and confess our sins, but often we shove it aside, say we’ll deal with it later and later never comes.  We should come to God and confess our sins as soon as we realize what we’ve done or said, whether it’s as soon as it happens or if it’s hours, days, weeks, months, or even years later.  Just make sure you confess your sins so that you’re ready free and clear when Jesus calls you home or returns.  Daniel’s answer came while he was still praying and confessing his sin.

“While I was speaking and praying,
confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel
and making my request to the LORD my God…”
Daniel 9:20, NIV

Results.  The best result is that your relationship with God is immediately restored.  There’s no acts of penance required, though sometimes restitution is needed with others, but we’ll get to that tomorrow.  All God requires is that we are truly repentant and confess our sins to Him.  He will take it from there.  He clears your record and begins to orchestrate the confession needed to others—the time, the place, the conversation, and any restitution needed.  If we pray and confess our sins to Him, He forgives immediately and gives us a clean heart to move forward.

If we confess our sins,
he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins,
and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
I John 1:9, KJV

Tomorrow we’ll look at confession to each other and why it’s necessary.

PRAYER POINT FOR TODAY:
Lord, You already know what I’ve done and said that is displeasing to You, but I hereby confess it and ask Your forgiveness. (Be specific!)

• Week 1– temptation
• Week 2 – confession, forgiveness, and fasting
• Week 3 – listening to God and answering when He calls
• Week 4 – God’s love for us
• Week 5 – waiting, anxiety, and trust
• Week 6 – suffering, pain, and struggles
• Easter – resurrection and salvation

This week we are focusing on confession, forgiveness, and fasting and all that entails.  But before we get to confession, we need to back up a step to examination.  Is there anything we need to confess, and if so, what is it?

Examination.  Ask any student of any age if they like exams, tests, or quizzes, and you’ll probably get a resounding no!  After all, who wants to be tested on their knowledge or their motives?!  Physical examinations are even more distasteful the older we get.  But in the Old Testament David prays over and over that God will examine his heart because he wants to be right before the Lord.

I know, my God, that you examine our hearts and
rejoice when you find integrity there.
You know I have done all this with good motives, and
I have watched your people offer their gifts willingly and joyously.
I Chronicles 29:17, NLT

No one is exempt.  In Psalm 11:4-5, David knows that the Lord watches everyone and I believe he is comforted by the fact that God examines both the righteous and the wicked.  God does not single out anyone, but watches everyone.  In Psalm 17:3 David acknowledges that God even examined him in the night, and takes comfort that his heart was found pure.  God sees the path we are on be it good or bad (Proverbs 5:21).

Nothing is hidden.  Jeremiah went to the Lord when he was being plotted against (Jeremiah 11:20, 17:10) and acknowledged that He examines the deepest thoughts, motives, and secrets of the heart.  Even in the midst of the destruction of Jerusalem (Lamentations 3:40), Jeremiah prayed that the people would examine themselves and turn back to the Lord.  When you find sin lurking inside, is that your desire?

The examiner.  I love Paul’s admission in I Corinthians 4:4, “My conscience is clear, but that doesn’t prove I’m right.  It is the Lord Himself who will examine me and decide.”  The examination can start with us, but we need the searchlight of the Holy Spirit to go deeper to get to the root of any sin that needs confessing.  It’s too easy for us to tell ourselves that a particular sin isn’t that bad or won’t hurt anybody.  We need total and complete honesty which only comes when the Holy Spirit reaches behind closed doors, in nooks and crannies, and hidden places.  He sees things others don’t see and that we don’t want to acknowledge.

Self-examination.  I Corinthians 11:17-34 is the passage often read on Communion Sundays as we prepare to take part in the Lord’s Supper.  “That is why you should examine yourself…”  As we go through the season leading up to the celebration of Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection, we need to once again take stock of what’s going on in our lives before coming to share in the Lord’s Supper.  Why?  If we eat and drink with sin in our lives, we are incurring God’s judgment on us, but if we examine ourselves and confess our sins, we won’t be condemned like those who are in the world and do not care what they do and say.

Final analysis.  “Examine yourselves to see if your faith is genuine.”  (II Corinthians 13:5)  The grade you get on a written test shows how well you did committing the study materials to memory and your understanding of it.  So it is with examining your heart.  It shows how well you are doing spiritually and if your faith is coherent and vibrant.

Grading time.  I have no idea what God’s grading system might look like for examination and confession of sins, but here’s my guess.  You might have a different idea.  This is just to get you thinking about where you might be on the grading scale.  This grading may have a bearing on where you will be in eternity.

• A – All known sins confessed to date
• B – Confessed but no resolution or restitution
• C – Confessed some but not all sins
• D – Examined self but struggling to confess
• E – Confessed general sins but didn’t examine self
• F – Unwilling to examine and confess sins

Examination conclusion.  Who doesn’t want to get an A on a test?  The grade depends on how much time and effort you’ve put into preparing for the test, studying, memorizing, and doing homework.  Where we spend eternity and our rewards when we arrive are dependent first of all on whether or not we’ve accepted the Lord as our Savior, and then how we’ve lived our lives based on that relationship.

PRAYER POINT FOR TODAY:
Lord, help me to live fully for You, keep short first of all accounts of sin and failures, and keep moving forward and upward until I at last get my final grade for this life.

• Week 1 – temptation
• Week 2 – confession, forgiveness, and fasting
• Week 3 – listening to God and answering when He calls
• Week 4 – God’s love for us
• Week 5 – waiting, anxiety, and trust
• Week 6 – suffering, pain, and struggles
• Easter – resurrection and salvation