Steps to a Good Confession

“Then he adds: “Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more.” And where these have been forgiven, sacrifice for sin is no longer necessary (Hebrews 10:17-18).” You want to know what happens when people do not understand forgiveness. There is an article in the Denver Catholic Register entitled, “Steps to a Good Confession.” The steps are designed to help penitents’ experience “buoyancy” and “peace” in their first confession. There are five steps in this process. Step 1 says to, “Examine our conscience.” This means to determine what sins you have committed. Depending on the person this could take an extremely long time and, in my opinion, is impossible to do when you consider all the opportunities we have to sin in thought, speech or deed. Yet the Bible says for a Christian to “draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water (Hebrews 10:22).” The truth is that your conscience should already be clean because God no longer remembers your sins. 

Step 2 says, “Be sorry for our sins.” Whether a person is sorry for their sins or not, they must know that the penalty for sins is not to be sorrowful. The penalty for sin is death and even if they gave their own life God would not forgive them. All sin deserves the death of God as payment. “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly (Romans 5:6).” Being sorry for sin is natural, but recognize that being sorry has no power to get you forgiven. Only the recognition that God, in Christ, had to die for your sins is what is most important. 

Step 3 is to “Make a firm purpose of Amendment.” This means a person must resolve not to sin again and to avoid occasions of sin. Good luck with this. While I am all for avoiding sin, the purpose of the Christian life is not to try and stop sinning. The purpose of the Christian life is to learn to trust and depend on God. Now, a byproduct of doing that will be a diminishing of the sin in your life, but only as a side effect of knowing your God, not as an achievement for living a life you cannot live. Jesus said, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect (Matthew 5:48).” How about lining up your “firm purpose of amendment” with Jesus Christ’s expectations; your best effort versus the perfect holiness of God. Can you do it? Of course you can’t. While you may score points among fellow Christians for your commitment, you are not fooling God. You will never stop sinning. God knew that and in His love took your sins away through the death of Jesus Christ. 

Step 4 is to “Confess our sins to a Priest.” Two quick thoughts pop up on this one. The Bible says that “Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins (Hebrews 10:11).” If a priest cannot take away sins, what good is it to confess your sins to one? Secondly, “For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus (1 Timothy 2:5).” The reason a priest cannot take away sins is because Jesus Christ is our Priest and the only one who mediates between mankind and God. 

Step 5 says to “Perform our Penance.” Penance is an act of kindness or prayers to pray, or both. This is nothing more than a work of the flesh that does nothing to give a person the motivation to change their behavior. This is the true license to sin that those of us who truly know God’s forgiveness are accused of teaching. The Bible says, “Therefore leaving the elementary teaching about the Christ, let us press on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God (Hebrews 6:1).”Performing penance is a dead work done by people believing that if they get their flesh under control they will be deemed holy, righteous and forgiven by God, or at the very least, the religious leaders they submit to. But, because they will never stop sinning, they, by default, will never be holy, righteous and forgiven. Yet, for a born again Christian we are holy, righteous and forgiven because of our faith in Christ. 

These five “Steps to a Good Confession,” are nothing more than a convoluted way of performing a sacrifice to God He doesn’t require or accept in order to take away sins He no longer remembers. You can’t have peace with God or experience buoyancy in your walk with Him if you still believe He holds your sins against you.