What do you do every night before you go to bed? If you're like many Christians you confess your sins to God to get forgiveness, to wake up with a clean slate in the morning. We all remember the classic prayer, said by children all over the world:
Now, I lay me down to sleep.
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
If I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take.
The pray is cute and may remind the one saying it of Jesus. In that sense, it has some merit. However, at the heart of the prayer is uncertainty about the eternal destination of the one saying it. As time goes on this prayer turns into a daily ritual of asking God to forgive our sins. In Luke 8, there is the story of Jesus healing a woman who had been sick for twelve years.
"As Jesus was on his way, the crowds almost crushed him. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years, but no one could heal her. She came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak, and immediately her bleeding stopped. "Who touched me?" Jesus asked. When they all denied it, Peter said, "Master, the people are crowding and pressing against you." But Jesus said, "Someone touched me; I know that power has gone out from me." Then the woman, seeing that she could not go unnoticed, came trembling and fell at his feet. In the presence of all the people, she told why she had touched him and how she had been instantly healed. Then he said to her, "Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace." Luke 8:42-48
This particular passage struck a chord with a fellow Christian that made them utter the following prayer:
"Lord, make me like this woman, willing to confess, openly, truthfully, when I have sinned. Help me cry out for Your touch by being that honest, that real with You before others, not hiding my sin, but crashing through my pride and shame and touching You. For it is in that confession that You touch me, heal me, and give me the peace that only You can give."
When I read this I could see how it sounds good and could appeal to those that respond to what appears to be the heartfelt prayer of someone humbled by the actions of the woman healed when she touched the cloak of Jesus. But, what I also see is the prayer of an individual who is still stuck at the cross and hasn't made their way to the empty tomb. Confession means to acknowledge what we have done. There is nothing wrong with acknowledging a sin committed. However, you must go one step further and confess what God did with that sin. God put your sins behind His back saying, "Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more (Hebrews 10:17)". Therefore, if you confess your sins to God, do so only as a means of admitting that you were not trusting Him at the time you committed that sin. Then approach God, in thankfulness for the forgiveness you have, to see why you weren't trusting Him when you sinned and allow Him to instruct you properly.
There is nothing holy or biblical about confessing sin in front of anybody unless it is to the individual you have sinned against. That is why James said, "confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed (James 5:16)." We forgive one another because we know that we have already been forgiven by God. It only makes sense to share with others that which we have received ourselves from God. Public confessions may make you look good in the eyes of churchgoers, but most of the time it only serves as an embarrassment to the one confessing. If God doesn't judge us for our sins any longer, we don't need to bring them up in public either. What we confess publicly is that "God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them (2 Corinthians 5:19)," so that, raised from the dead, He could offer His life as a gift to all who come to faith in Christ.
We are already "holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation (Colossians 1:22)" because of our faith. We don't confess our sins to get touched by God, healed by Him, or live in peace. We are already more than touched by God because His very life indwells each of us. We have been healed of our spiritual death because of His resurrected life in us. And because of our faith "we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 5:1)." Our sins are no longer an issue between us and God. He no longer judges us based on sin and death. He judges us based on a new life in Christ. And in that life, we have forgiveness of sins as an inheritance for our faith. Just as Paul begged the Corinthian church to be reconciled to God, I do the same. Be reconciled to God. A Christian lives by faith and not from sin to sin. We need to tell the whole world that forgiveness is already available to them, but that they have a bigger problem than their sins. They are dead spiritually and in need of life. And the only life available to them is found in Christ. "For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive (1 Corinthians 15:22)."
Christians need to recognize the fact that they are already forgiven by God. If they don't they will never experience His love and will struggle to grow in their relationship with Him. You can't approach God if you feel your sins still separate you from Him and that you need to perform a sacrifice to appease Him. "And where these have been forgiven, there is no longer any sacrifice for sin (Hebrews 10:18)." There is no more sacrifice for sin. Christ died once and for all to bring us to God. Your confession, public or otherwise, is not necessary and, definitely, not accepted by God. Our public confession should be that of the forgiveness and life found only in Christ. It is time we move past our sins and into the new life we have in Christ. Otherwise, we will never know God, and possibly, never be known by Him.
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