Strength from Confession and Repentance
When was the last time you confessed something?
Verse of the Day
Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results.
Today’s Devotional
God’s economy does not work in the same way as human economy. His system seems backwards to us. Or at least it does to me. Human economy describes power and strength in certain ways:
“Might makes right.”
“He with the gold rules.”
“May the strongest man win.”
“History is written by the victors.”
Today, I suggest to you that in God’s economy, those who confess and repent are the strong ones. As backwards as that may seem to our little human brains. And I know, there is so much of our humanness that wants to hide our sins, mistakes and failures. But God tells us otherwise. Those of us who are willing to confess and repent will be given strength in greater measure than those who refuse to do so. Let’s look at the biblical evidence.
“When you become aware of your guilt in any of these ways, you must confess your sin.” ( Leviticus 5:5 ) Many times we are not aware of our guilt until God points it out to us. My mother says that if we ask God to reveal our sins to us, he will answer that prayer. When they are revealed, and we become aware of the error of our ways, how do we respond? Are we defensive? Do we lash out about something unrelated? Or, do we embody the next verse? Psalm 38:18 points us in the right directions: “But I confess my sins; I am deeply sorry for what I have done.”
Maybe I’m just stuck and I don’t know why. If so, it might be time to ask God to help you see what is keeping you stuck. Maybe there is a sin that you cannot see or that you reduce to acknowledge. Here’s what the Bible says about that:
“When I refused to confess my sin, my body wasted away, and I groaned all day long.” (Psalm 32:3)
“People who conceal their sins will not prosper, but if they confess and turn from them, they will receive mercy.” (Proverbs 28:13)
When we see our sin and become willing to be honest about it, there is freedom and strength. Look at Psalm 32:5: “Finally, I confessed all my sins to you and stopped trying to hide my guilt. I said to myself, “I will confess my rebellion to the Lord .” And you forgave me! All my guilt is gone.”
Or we don’t confess, and we wonder why we are stagnant. Psalm 66:18 says: “If I had not confessed the sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.”
That’s a lot of verses about confession and repentance. Confession is the act of being honest about our shortcomings, and repentance adds the implication of a resolve to change. There is strength in God’s economy in the acts of confession and repentance. We need to be a people who regularly confess things to each other. We need to be fostering the kinds of relationships where this is normal, accepted and welcomed. And clearly, we need to be praying for each other. You are righteous because of the blood of Jesus, therefore your prayers are powerful according to today’s verse. There’s power in confession and repentance. And there is power in hitting our knees.
Journal Prompts
Answer only the questions that seem relevant to you today.
How comfortable are you with confessing your sins, weaknesses, or failures to another human? How comfortable are you confessing to God?
Ask God today to show you anything that you might need to become aware of that is keeping you from Him.
Who do you need to pray for today?
Who can you reach out to, to foster and deepen a relationship where confession can happen? If you aren’t sure, ask God to show you.
What do you need to confess today?