Confession Is Good

Confession brings forgiveness, cleansing and eternal life.

1 John 1:8-10  If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth.   

9 But if we confess our sins to Him, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.   

10  If we claim we have not sinned, we are calling God a liar and showing that His word has no place in our hearts.

---

We have all heard that confession is good for the soul, even modern psychology believes that confession is valuable, the problem is they don't know why confession is so valuable and they definitely don't know who it is that you need to confess to.

Sin gets in the way of our ability to have fellowship with God and confession is the way to make the relationship right again. It sounds like a great idea to live in fellowship with God but too many of us are content to live without fellowship because we are not willing to give up our selfish ways and our pride.

We only have a small glimpse of what the Garden of Eden was like before God closed it so it is difficult to understand what the world was like before sin broke everything. We cannot fully comprehend how bad sin is, to us sin is our normal routine and not sinning is the thing that we struggle with, it is difficult for us to see sin as God sees it. God sees sin as being so bad and so evil that it cost Jesus his life, there wasn't a quick and easy fix for sin, it took something as drastic as God on a cross to undo it's effects on us.

Proverbs 28:13  People who conceal their sins will not prosper, but if they confess and turn from them, they will receive mercy.

Our attitude towards our sin determines whether we can enjoy fellowship with God. Some of the ways that we can deal with sin in our life:

✔  Pretend like you have never sinned

✔  Claim that you have stopped sinning
✔   Ignore your sin and refuse to deal with it

✔  Confess your sin

If we don't confess our sins then in essence we are disagreeing with God and telling him that he is wrong. It sounds pretty arrogant but sometimes we go to great lengths to avoid admitting that we blew it. The devil loves it when we behave like he does and exhibit the same characteristics that he has.

If we do confess then there is a promise from God that he will forgive. How much easier could God make it?  But don't think that you can keep it shallow and get any results, God wants us to be real, it's easy to say, "I am a sinner," but if confession is to be real it must mention exactly what you did wrong.

The first confession
Romans 10:9-10  If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.  10  For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by confessing with your mouth that you are saved.

If Jesus is not your Savior then there isn't any forgiveness from God for you. Before we can expect to receive forgiveness there is another confession that must come first. We must confess that Jesus is God's son that was crucified to pay the penalty of sin for us, he was raised from the dead to offer a guarantee that we would be raised as well.

I want to have fellowship with God because of the incredible gift of salvation that he gave to me. I need to live for him so that the fellowship will not be broken.