Confession is a powerful, healing, cleansing, life-giving word. Yet in today’s world, confession seems to only happen after people get caught in sin. It’s often unclear whether people are sorry for their sins or just sorry they got caught. True biblical confession is all about honesty. It is telling the truth to yourself and telling the truth to God. The way to find the healing and forgiveness of God, the way to being freed from guilt and shame and finding the best is through honestly confessing our sins.
God is a great forgiver. The people of Israel discovered that confession was a crucial part of their reconnecting with God. Confession is when we decide we are not going to deny, pretend, place blame, or excuse our bad behavior anymore. Confession is not talking about my mistakes, errors, lapses in judgment, or dysfunction; confession is saying “God, you are right and I am wrong. What I have done violates your standards. I should not have done it. I am sorry for my sin. My actions were sinful. I let you down; I let myself down; I let others down. God, forgive me of my sin.”
Now that is a prayer that will open your soul and allow God’s forgiveness and mercy and joy and freedom to flow into you.
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