This last Sunday, my father’s Pastor, Herk continued in his current sermon series leading up to Easter’s Good Friday and Resurrection Day. He states that confession equals God’s forgiveness. Confession is defined in the 1828 Webster’s dictionary as: 1. the acknowledgment of a crime, fault or something to one's disadvantage; open declaration of guilt, failure, debt, accusation. 2. Avowal; the act of acknowledging; profession. 3. The act of disclosing sins or faults to a priest; the disburdening of the conscience privately to a confessor; sometimes called auricular confession. Confession is a process of recognition of sin with the intent of turning from it and experiencing God’s forgiveness, free from shame and guilt.
Lamentations 3:40-41 “Let us search out and examine our ways, and turn back to the Lord; Let us lift our hearts and hands to God in heaven.”
We need a regular practice of searching our lives and taking time to look inside can cultivate a life of grace and mercy as we work towards improving our walk with the Lord, overcome the sins of our past, and correct the poor decisions that we’ve made in our lives. The Bible calls every Believer to practice confession as disciples of Christ for the forgiveness of sin. The Oxford English Dictionary defines the word “confession” as: 1. A formal statement admitting that one is guilty of a crime. 2. An acknowledgement that one has done something about which one is ashamed or embarrassed.3. A formal admission of one's sins with repentance and desire of absolution, especially privately to a priest as a religious duty. In order to confess, we have to admit that we are wrong.
Psalm 32:3-5 “When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me; My vitality was drained away as with the fever heat of summer. I acknowledged my sin to You, and my iniquity I did not hide; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord”; and You forgave the guilt of my sin.”
Do you find it easy to admit when you are wrong and confessing it? Difficulty arises from our pride, indifference, or fear of showing weakness, of disappointing someone close, of discipline or of punishment. James 5:16 tells us to, “confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.” Confessing our sins and coming clean to someone can take us out of our comfort zone, seeming risky to image, reputation and ego. But, the greatest fear is, out of pure reverence, “letting down” and disappointing our heavenly Father, more than our fellow man. That is the meaning of “the fear of the Lord”.
1 John 1:8-9 “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
With God, we are promised that remorseful and repentant confession equals God’s forgiveness. Hebrews 12:1-2 says, “Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance 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 has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” It is because of Jesus’ sinless life and His humble sacrifice on the Cross in our place for our sins that we can experience that forgiveness of the Father, Almighty God.
Let's continue Pastor Herk's message on confession and God's forgiveness in the next post.
In Christ, Brian
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