CONFESSION OF SINS – Part 2 of 3
Sakkie Parsons
Translated from Afrikaans
Translator: Robin Barker
In my first writing in this short series of three thoughts from the Word, I started answering, where someone had written the following to me:
“I see all the time the verse from the Bible that if you confess your sins then you will be forgiven. To whom must you confess your sins? Surely God already knows the sins we have comitted? I just wonder about those people who can be hurt if I confess those sins to them. I certainly do not want to know if my wife was unfaithful to me, because it will just hurt me if I knew about it. Even more so I do not want to know if a loved one has stolen from me or any other person. This would harm the relationship because you will no longer trust the person near to your possessions. I just wondered about to whom must you confess your sins and I hope you can shine a little light on the subject.”
In the second of this short series I share the following with you:
Why, if our Lord Jesus has already paid our debt fully at Golgotha, must I still confess my sins, which I as a person have comitted, to the Lord?
Part of the question that was written to me by the person was: To whom must you confess your sins? Surely God already knows the sins we have comitted?
Well, the first person to whom I must confess my sins to, acording to the Word, is naturally to our Lord and the reason for this, as I believe, is firstly due to my relationship with our Lord.
I see it that way, and in my example which I use, I want to ask you to quickly think of a simillar example within your own family, because then it will make it more understandable, how our relationship is between us and our Lord, and for you to bring it to the foreground in your heart.
I had a set of glasses which are precious and has sentimental value to me. Then my son, for whom I truely love, accidently broke one of them, but he did not tell me about it and then went and threw it quietly into the dustbin, but I saw through the window how the glass broke.
Although I love my son, there is still an obstacle now between me and my son because I know he was not open with me. But, if he had come to me and told me what he has done, because it was bothering him and asks for forgiveness, I would forgive him with precious compassion. And the bond between us would be much stronger.
But now he does not come asking for forgiveness, a little later he breaks another one of those glasses, but now it is not a huge problem for him, because he, as he thinks, got away with it the first time around. And again I saw what he did.
Now the obstacle between us becomes an obstruction and because seemingly nothing happened when he did something wrong, then in the future it becomes easier to do wrong, and smiling satan looks at the obstacle and gives encouragement, and then the obstacle grows into an obstruction and then if my son continues in that way, then it will become a insurmountable wall.
Because our Lord knows where that type of life is going to lead, He talks about, no, pleads continuously through His Word and through people, with us to continually confess what is wrong in our lives to Him – so that our relationship between Him and us does not weaken, because He knows about everything we do and He knows where it will lead us if we continue moving in the wrong direction, because we with our own will, which He created us with, has chosen.
Because, if we do not truly confess our sins to Him each time, a time will come, because this is human nature, that we will move so far away from Him that we will not be able to hear His pleading voice – and then the following terrible tragedy that we will no longer want to hear His voice, because sin has become the ‘norm’ in our lives.
Why do I say it is a terrible tragedy?
Because then, in spite of what you read in my first writing, I am already irrevocably on this side of the grave on the road to hell, because I took our Lord’s great godly love, in actual fact threw it into His face, and it doesn’t bother me.
Because listen, even if there are people who proclaim: “Once saved, always saved”:
HEB 6:4-6 4It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, 5who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age 6and who have fallene away, to be brought back to repentance. To their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace.” (TNIV)
Now there are people, especially those who proclaim that if someone is saved they are saved for always, that will say this is not about true repentant people, for them I say just, that you cannot be a true repentant person who has received the Holy Spirit, and as the Word says that you cannot be brought to repentance again, it says to me that there is a particular time for you to be repentant:
HEB 6:4 & 6 4It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, ……. 6and who have fallene away, to be brought back to repentance. …… (TNIV)
Therefore Jesus also explains it clearly that we must make confessing our sins part of our daily prayers to our Lord.
Because Jesus gave us (The Lord’s Prayer) Our Fathers prayer as an example, of how we must pray, He makes sure that we know how we must pray:
MAT 6:12 “And forgive us our debts, as we also have for-given our debtors.” (TNIV)
How delightful to have the communication between me and my Lord clean and open, through always confessing my sins to Him en therefore also keeping the relationship between Him and me delightfully clean and intemate.
If my sins which I regularly commit, although I do not want to do this, truely confess them to our Lord, will it also bring my relationship and my atitude towards the people around me, to be more truthful and sincere. So my lifestyle as a child of God, also towards my fellowman, will show integrity and through my life and not just my words, will be a light for our Lord:
1JOH1:7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellow-ship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. (TNIV)
1JHN 1:8 A If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. (TNIV)
1JHN 1:9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” (TNIV)
Greetings,
Sakkie