Confession

Hello everybody, the title of this post may be a bit misleading because this is not going to be a Catholic based post. Something that has been on my heart recently is the concept of confession and repentance. I spoke a little bit on this a while ago with my "All for One" post but I just wanted to expand on this a little bit. We are called to confess our sins, both to God and to other believers. 1 John 1:9 says this "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." James 5:16 says "Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working." So, for this post I will just talk a bit on each of these verses.

1 John 1 talks a lot about walking in the light. It has 3 marks of a person who does "not practice the truth." I believe these are referring to someone who claims to know Christ but doesn't. The three marks of this person are as follows: someone who claims to have fellowship with God but walks in darkness, someone who says they have no sin, and someone who says we have not sinned. The first two are a bit different than the last. Dealing with the first two, the person deceives or lies to himself, however with the last one, the person makes God out to be a liar. What's the same throughout them however, is that the truth is not in the person. If you are experiencing any of these "symptoms" (be honest with yourself and really look at your life) there is always hope! This is where verse 7 and 9 come into play.

1 John 1:7 says "But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin." I think this and verse 9 are so great for two reasons; they either offer a way out of how we've been living or they encourage us in how we are living. We can have that fellowship I talked about in the "All for One" post if we walk in the light. Isn't that great? We can have awesome fellowship with other believers and with Jesus if we just "walk in the light" (yes, I do realize this is harder said than done). That was a little tangent from my main point for this post but a good one I think. Anyway, verse 9 mentions confession of sins. We are called to confess our sins to God and if we do this, he will forgive us. No questions asked. How great is that? That's the whole reason he sent his Son, to die for our sins as a perfect sacrifice so that he could forgive our sins. I can't fully wrap my mind around this to this day. So, my first challenge for you in this post is to not hold anything back from God. I mean, he already knows everything so what's the point? It is so relieving to do this.

Now, on to the passage from James. Quick side note, James is my favorite book in the Bible and I would highly recommend that you read through it and meditate on it throughout this next week. Anyway, in James, we are called to confess our sins to other believers. Hopefully I didn't just scare you away by saying this because I know this is a scary, no, terrifying thing to do. There are so many things that are scary, shameful, or whatever other feeling crossed your mind, about this concept. But, I can tell you from personal experience, this is one of the best things you can do. This truly does lead to healing, I've experienced it. I struggled with a specific sin for quite some time (if you really want to know what, I will share with you, it's just not something I should be posting on the internet) and tried fighting it on my own many times and every single time, I failed. Then, after years of battling it, I began attacking it with confession and have since rid my life of that sin that gripped me for so many years. This is not to say I don't struggle with temptations or other sins, but, healing came in that area after I confessed and had people praying for me. Now, I'm not saying go to the pulpit next Sunday and share your sin with the entire body, but I am saying that you need to find a few people that you can go to to confess sin. I personally have 4 accountability partners that I plan to utilize when I go back home. (There are a lot of people on project that I can and have confessed to but that probably won't continue when I go back home). I don't say this to brag but to encourage you, to show you that it is possible and people aren't that scary. After you confess, pray together for strength and healing. You'll be amazed by what happens.

So, if there is a sin that was on your mind this entire post or part of it, confess. Confess to God and confess to other believers. What one is scarier to you? For me it's confessing to other believers and I feel like it's a pretty safe assumption to say that that is how a lot of you feel. Think about this for a second though, why is that true? Why is it easier to confess to a perfectly holy God than to confess to other sinners who do the same things? Seems silly when you put it that way doesn't it? If you can confess to God, you should be able to confess to other believers. I feel like I wrote a lot but I also feel like I have more to say, so, if you want to talk more on the matter or have questions, feel free to email me at tedds@umich.edu. Thanks for reading!

God Bless and Go Blue!
Tedd Sheets Jr.