Devotional: The Importance of Confession

[electedbyHim]

October 3

The Importance of Confession​

“If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us” (1 John 1:10).

Confession is the first step toward defeating sin.

It is often true that the hardest part of dealing with a problem is admitting that you have one. Beginning with Adam and Eve (Gen. 3:11-13), people have denied responsibility for their sins, and our generation is no exception. To acknowledge that one is a sinner, guilty of breaking God’s holy law, is not popular. People call sin by a myriad of other names, futilely hoping to define it out of existence. They do so, motivated by their innate awareness that there is a moral law and that there are consequences for violating it (Rom. 1:32).

But God’s people have always recognized the necessity of confession. After committing the terrible sins of adultery and murder, David acknowledged to Nathan the prophet, “I have sinned against the Lord” (2 Sam. 12:13). Later he cried out to God, “For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against Thee, Thee only, I have sinned, and done what is evil in Thy sight” (Ps. 51:3-4). Faced with a vision of the awesome majesty and holiness of God, Isaiah declared, “Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips” (Isa. 6:5). Daniel was a man of unparalleled integrity, yet part of his prayer life involved confessing his sin (Dan. 9:20). Peter, the acknowledged leader of the apostles, said to Jesus, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!” (Luke 5:8). The apostle Paul, the godliest man who ever lived (except for Jesus Christ), wrote this about himself: “It is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost of all” (1 Tim. 1:15).

The examples of those godly men illustrate a fundamental biblical truth: constant confession of sin characterizes true Christians (1 John 1:9). Those who claim to be believers but refuse to confess their sins deceive themselves (1 John 1:8) and make God a liar (1 John 1:10).

Suggestions for Prayer

Confess and forsake your sins today, and experience the blessedness of God’s forgiveness (Prov. 28:13).

For Further Study

Read and meditate on Nehemiah’s masterful prayer of confession in Nehemiah 1.


From Strength for Today by John MacArthur

 

[Vinny37]

October 3

The Importance of Confession​

“If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us” (1 John 1:10).

Confession is the first step toward defeating sin.

It is often true that the hardest part of dealing with a problem is admitting that you have one. Beginning with Adam and Eve (Gen. 3:11-13), people have denied responsibility for their sins, and our generation is no exception. To acknowledge that one is a sinner, guilty of breaking God’s holy law, is not popular. People call sin by a myriad of other names, futilely hoping to define it out of existence. They do so, motivated by their innate awareness that there is a moral law and that there are consequences for violating it (Rom. 1:32).

But God’s people have always recognized the necessity of confession. After committing the terrible sins of adultery and murder, David acknowledged to Nathan the prophet, “I have sinned against the Lord” (2 Sam. 12:13). Later he cried out to God, “For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against Thee, Thee only, I have sinned, and done what is evil in Thy sight” (Ps. 51:3-4). Faced with a vision of the awesome majesty and holiness of God, Isaiah declared, “Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips” (Isa. 6:5). Daniel was a man of unparalleled integrity, yet part of his prayer life involved confessing his sin (Dan. 9:20). Peter, the acknowledged leader of the apostles, said to Jesus, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!” (Luke 5:8). The apostle Paul, the godliest man who ever lived (except for Jesus Christ), wrote this about himself: “It is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost of all” (1 Tim. 1:15).

The examples of those godly men illustrate a fundamental biblical truth: constant confession of sin characterizes true Christians (1 John 1:9). Those who claim to be believers but refuse to confess their sins deceive themselves (1 John 1:8) and make God a liar (1 John 1:10).

Suggestions for Prayer

Confess and forsake your sins today, and experience the blessedness of God’s forgiveness (Prov. 28:13).

For Further Study

Read and meditate on Nehemiah’s masterful prayer of confession in Nehemiah 1.


From Strength for Today by John MacArthur

I rather like Peter Gillquist’s Love is Now. Chapter 4 is An Obsession with Confession. Now, Christian confessing of sins to God can be underdone, but it can also be overdone and wrongly done. Take 1 Jhn.1:9-10. The Greek verbs are in the aorist, effectively an emphatic do-once, like water-baptism, not like the eucharist. In short, John called on non-Christians bound by gnostic type denial of core-sin, to one-off acknowledge their sin and become Christians: God would one-off (aorist) forgive them (ie welcome them into his family).

I’d take 1 Tm.1:15 as a present tense with a past meaning. After all, Paul could not know what every Christian heart was like, nor did he call Christians sinners, but he did know that he had bitterly persecuted the church (1 Cor.15:9). It kills me in my FIEC when fellow Christians confess to being the chief of sinners (as if vying with Paul’s pre-Christian title). 1 Tm.1:16 moved to a past action—not “I receive” but “I received”. Paul stood (present tense) as an extreme example of one who had received (past tense) mercy. “While we were sinners” (Rm.5:8). The torah was for ‘sinners’ (1 Tm.1:9).

There is a family difference between non-Christians evangelistically sinners, and Christians pastorally sinners—between sinners who sin and saints who sin. In Christ we are the holy ones. Pastorally, if we stray into sin it sometimes makes sense to confess as much to our father—and perhaps to fellow human beings we’ve wronged.

BTW, 2 Sam.12:13 was to the LORD, not to the Lord. That later error can lead to or flow from Sabellianism, the heresy that Yeshua the lord is a face of Yahweh.