Confession

If you keep tropical fish every now and again you need to clean the water. You have to siphon off about a third of the tank because the waste products from the fish make the water toxic which, if left untreated, become deadly. – That’s a picture of what sin is like. – The water in the fish tank has to be replenished with fresh clean water. It seems to me this is a bit like what happens when we confess our sins. We are never purely holy, not 100%, and our sin is like toxic waste. But when we confess our sin and we receive God’s forgiveness, we are replenished and filled afresh with God’s grace, forgiveness and love.

You know the very first question God asks in the Bible… “Where are you?” When Adam and Eve sinned they hid from God but He immediately came looking from them – seeking to restore their relationship. God didn’t ask ‘what did you do’. He already knew that information. He asked, ‘where are you’. Obviously, he already knew that information too! The reason God asks ‘where are you’ is because He wanted to see if they would invite Him into their failure. Same with us: Unconfessed sin is like a stone in your shoe; you’ll have no peace until you get it out in the open; and get rid of it. God cannot forgive sin until it is acknowledged… (Have you been rude, selfish, unkind, swearing, looking at stuff you shouldn’t be looking at? Have you cheated, been unfair, mean; have you lied or gossiped…) As Rick Warren says, “Jesus knows the things we have done wrong, but he didn’t come to rub them in. He came to rub them out. He didn’t come to condemn us; he came to change us, restore us. A clean slate is possible!”

Rick Warren, God’s Power To Change Your Life, 2006, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, p.14

Bishop Sandy Millar tells of a time when he was walking along the beach and he noticed how the sand had been churned up by the footprints of those who had gone before him. The next morning the footprints were all wiped away by the sea. He sensed Jesus saying to him, ‘That is a picture of forgiveness.’ Forgiveness from Jesus Christ is like a recording of the bad stuff in our lives being wiped completely clean.

Source: Nicky Gumbel, Bible in One Year – Day 70 of 365

Confession: What will the Vatican give for the pope’s name? Roger Cadenhead sought an answer to that question. Upon the death of Pope John Paul, this self-described “domain hoarder” registered www.BenedictXVI.com before the new pope’s name was announced. Cadenhead secured it before Rome knew they even needed it. (The right domain name can prove lucrative. Another name, www.PopeBenedictXVI.com surpassed sixteen thousand dollars on eBay.) Cadenhead, however, didn’t want money. A Catholic himself, he’s happy for the church to own the name. “I’m going to try and avoid angering 1.1 billion Catholics and my grandmother,” he quipped. He would like something in return though. In exchange, Cadenhead sought:

1. “One of those hats”;
2. “A free stay at the Vatican hotel”;
3. and “Complete absolution, no questions asked, for the third week of March 1987.”

Makes you wonder what happened that week, doesn’t it? It may remind you of a week of your own. Most of us have one, or more. A folly-filled summer, a month off track, days gone wild. If a box of tapes existed documenting every second of your life, which tapes would you want to burn? Do you have a season in which you indulged, imbibed or inhaled? Does your third week of March stalk you? It’s time for you to put your “third week of March 1987” to rest… Place the mistake before the judgment seat of God. Let him condemn it, let him pardon it, and let him put it away.

Max Lucado

Source: Max Lucado, 2006, Facing Your Giants, Nashville Tennessee: Thomas Nelson, p142-2, 148

I remember as a young boy I would sometimes fall over in the playground and graze my knee, as children are apt to do. With my knee smarting and bleeding I would cry out seeking comfort. The school nurse would put a band-aid on the wound to make it better but first of all she would clean it with neat Dettol, which would often hurt more than the initial injury itself. – The experience was that of desperately wanting to receive the healing comfort of the band-aid but not that of the cleansing. – Isn’t that so true to life? We want God’s blessing and we want to be comforted, but we don’t want to have to go through the painful experience of facing up to our sin, of being purged and cleansed, in order to be comforted. There is, however, no other way: We have to recognise our sin, confess and repent of it, and then, by faith, receive the cleansing and purification of Jesus… before we can be comforted.

R. Ian Seymour

Brennan Manning tells the story that a few years ago in a large city in America, rumours spread that a certain Catholic woman was having visions of Jesus. The reports reached the archbishop and He decided to check her out to see if she was authentic.

“Is it true, ma’am, that you have visions of Jesus?” asked the archbishop.

“Yes,” the woman replied simply.

“Well, then, the next time you have a vision, I want you to ask Jesus to tell you the sins that I confessed in my last confession.”

The woman was stunned. “Did I hear you right, bishop? You actually want me to ask Jesus to tell me the sins of your past.”

“Exactly! Please call me if anything happens.”

Well, ten days later the woman notified him of a recent apparition: “Please come,” she said.

Within the hour the archbishop arrived. He wanted to have eye-to-eye contact. “You just told me on the phone that you actually had a vision of Jesus. Did you do what I asked?”

“Yes, bishop, I asked Jesus to tell me the sins you confessed in your last confession.”

The bishop leaned forward with anticipation. “What did Jesus say?”

She gazed intently into his eyes. “Bishop,” she said, “These are his exact words: ‘I CAN’T REMEMBER.’”

Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel , p.14

If you have ever lifted up a flagstone or a rock in the garden you will have noticed all the bugs and creepy crawlies scurrying for cover as you expose them to the light. Similarly, when someone comes close to God they see the light of His holiness and it shows up their own sinfulness and unworthiness. That’s why we need to come into the light; we need to confess our sin and not scurry away and hide from God. When we confess and repent of our sins the blood of Jesus cleanses us and we are forgiven and able to bathe again in the light of God’s holiness.

Exercise involving a written confession of sin: Write you sin/s on paper. Then fold the paper in half to symbolise a ‘closed’ chapter. Take the paper to a large wooden cross where there is a hammer and nails. Nail your confession to the cross and leave it there. (Audible impact of the sound of the hammer hitting the nail and visual impact of the sight of a confession plastered cross.)

Source: Mark Batterson, IF, 2015, Grand Rapids: Michigan, Baker Books, p.66

One of the attributes of our God is His omniscience, a word made up of two words: omni, which means all, and science, which has to do with knowledge… I love the story of the wealthy grandfather who was getting on in age. He was going deaf, but he went to the doctor and was fitted with a unique hearing aid. It not only overcame the man’s deafness, but it allowed him to hear perfectly. When he went back to the doctor for a check-up, the doctor commented, “Well, your family must be extremely happy that you can now hear.” The grandfather said, “No, I haven’t told them about my hearing aid. I just sit around and listen to the conversations. I’ve already changed my will twice!” – Are you living your life in light of the fact that God hears and sees everything you say and do?

Tony Evans

Source: Tony Evans, Time To Get Serious, 1995, Illinois: Crossway Books, p.20

When we confess our sin to God, through faith in Christ and in true repentance, the sin is dealt with. Period! It is covered with the blood of Christ; paid for in full. Psalm 103v12 puts it like this: ‘As far as the east is from the west so far has he removed our transgressions from us.’ – You can usually measure the points between north and south but east and west never meet, they just keep on going. That’s a symbolic portrait of God’s forgiveness. When he forgives us He removes our sin, our transgressions from us and doesn’t even remember them.

Mark Batterson writes: “Every tennis legend who has played on Centre Court at Wimbledon, from Arthur Ashe to Serena Williams, has walked under an inscription on the player’s entrance with a prophetic message to both winner and loser:

‘If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two imposters just the same’

That’s it – an incomplete yet powerful thought, cut and pasted from a poem by British Nobel Laurette Rudyard Kipling, entitled “If”. – The BBC named it Britain’s favourite poem.

There are thousands of promises in the Bible, the vast majority come with an ‘if’ attached to the front end. One of the most amazing ‘ifs’ is in 1 John 1:8-9, but it’s a two-edged sword that cuts both ways: ‘If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.’

If we plead innocent, we’re guilty as charged. Even the advocate can’t come to our defence. But if we plead guilty as charged, we’re found innocent and we come under God’s protective custody.”

Source: Mark Batterson, IF, 2015, Grand Rapids: Michigan, Baker Books, p.36-37, 40

Everyone has a shadow and whenever they come into the light or into the sunshine their shadow is exposed. Similarly, whenever we come to God in confession, it’s like God’s light shining on us and our shadow, our sin is exposed, laid bare before God, but as soon as we repent, confess and ask God for forgiveness the shadow is banished, dealt with: It’s like God stands directly over us so the shadow no longer exists… it has been cast away.

At the end of a meal in a restaurant with some friends, I got up to pay for my meal and was told by the waiter, “It’s been paid for already. Someone else has covered it for you.” As we confess our sins to God through Jesus [with a repentant heart], he assures us that they have already been paid for on the cross.

Source: Explore Bible notes, 7/1/2015