To confess is to “tell or make known (as something wrong or damaging to self); to acknowledge sin to God or a priest; to declare faith in or adherence to (profess); to give evidence of.
“Confess” implies a serious – not just a casual telling – but a seriousness of heart and mind. We don’t casually approach the throne of God – “Oh, yeah, by the way, sorry about that little white lie I told to Susie.” I am sure if we approach Him with that “I-really-don’t-think-it’s-such-a-big-deal” attitude, He will not receive our confession. He will not take us seriously.
Confession, to many people, smacks of Roman Catholicism. That is not what I’m writing about. Confession is repentance. “We confess that we have sinned against You.” So when we confess, we repent.
The second part of this line – “we have sinned against You” – I’m not convinced that we truly understand – deep in our hearts – that when we sin, not only do we sin against the person we offended – we have sinned against the Almighty God. I don’t think we always realize the seriousness of our sins. “Oh, it was just a little white lie I told to Susie. She’ll never find out.” That’s not the point. The point is we have sinned against God and to Him, sin is sin. A white lie is just as much a sin as murder. And murder is just as much a sin as judging others.
Sin is serious business; therefore, confession – repentance - is even more serious. May we never become so unaware of our sin that we repent with a lackadaisical attitude.
2 comments:
amen
Edwina:
King David tells us that we sin against God and Him alone. I know we hurt people when we include them in our sin.
You have some good thoughts here.
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