I Have A Confession

Written By Heather Perrin

by Amanda Christopher

Search me, O God, and know my heart!
Try me and know my thoughts!
And see if there be any grievous way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.
Psalm 139:23-24

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
1 John 1:9

Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.
James 5:16

The act of confession in the life of a disciple of Jesus refers to openly and honestly examining the heart alongside the Holy Spirit, admitting and repenting of sins, receiving forgiveness, and promoting a renewed relationship with God and others. Confession includes humbly sharing our feelings and fears with God, as well as our sins. Confession and repentance bring a person to humility and restoration through Jesus’s mercy and can lead to a renewed purpose and testimony in the life of the person. Disciples of Jesus experience healing and growth in Christ when engaging in honest confession, deepening our relationship with God and others.


I have a confession: I need to grow in confession as a discipline. 

I can confess pretty easily when I am confronted with something that I have done to hurt someone, when I know I’ve lost my temper with my kids, or when I say something harsh without thinking. But if I consider the explanation above—“openly and honestly examining the heart alongside the Holy Spirit, admitting and repenting of sins, receiving forgiveness, and promoting a renewed relationship with God and others”—I see a lot of room for growth. Ongoing examination of my heart and life, asking God to convict me of sin - that sounds hard!

I think the two main things that hold me back are time and fear. 

Time is an easy struggle to understand, and most of you I’m sure can relate. We are all spread thin, so taking the time to be quiet before the Lord can feel impossible. It may feel like adding one more to-do to a list that is already overwhelming.

Two things to consider: 1) this is why it is called a discipline! And 2) sometimes we overcomplicate it. 

It does take actual discipline to incorporate these practices. It takes deciding to make this a priority as you seek to grow in your relationship with God, and intentionally setting aside time and space to practice. It won’t necessarily be easy at first, but I believe it becomes easier, and it will most assuredly be worth it.

But also, don’t make it harder than it has to be. If you are imagining that you must spend hours each day laying your soul bare before the Lord, that is not what we are suggesting with this discipline. We may be so unaccustomed to practicing the presence of God continually that we think every interaction with Him has to be formal, thought out, or extravagant. Beginning the practice of confession may be something as simple as regularly asking God to reveal our sin to us and then spending five minutes listening and waiting, inviting the Holy Spirit to speak. If you don’t hear anything, trust that He is working in His time and remain expectantly attentive to Him. 

I believe fear is probably another obstacle that many can relate to. Fear of being honest with God, fear of being honest with myself or others, fear of how God might ask me to change.

Here’s the deal: what’s true is already true, and God already knows it. If it’s true that you struggle with the sin of anger, that is already true, and not being honest with God or yourself about it only deepens and/or prolongs the struggle. No believer really wants to continue in sin, and yet we often fail to be honest about our sin and take the steps to kill it. 

Now, I am not trying to suggest that coming face to face with our own sin and the way it grieves our Father isn’t painful. IT IS. It should cause us to grieve as well. But it is also a great kindness that God doesn’t allow us to remain in our sin that keeps us from growing into a deeper, sweeter, more loving relationship with Him. And though this process is painful, the reality that we are already fully accepted and loved by God–who knows our frame and sees the depths of our sin, that we don’t even fully comprehend ourselves–is the thing that makes confession not just possible, but an incredible means of grace.

A personal example for me is my ongoing struggle with anxiety. It began in 2022, after I had a breast biopsy. Although the biopsy results were benign, it introduced a new potential reality for me that something could be growing in my body that I didn’t know about, and maybe the next one wouldn’t be benign. I had anxious thoughts before that time, but after that, worrying about endless “what-if” scenarios became a besetting sin for me, the very opposite of what Jesus says when he tells us not to be anxious about anything.

(I feel I always have to include a caveat here that I am not speaking to anyone else’s struggle with a clinical anxiety disorder. Personally, I was falling into a habit of borrowing tomorrow’s potential problems and not submitting my thought life to the Lord.)

At first, I just tried to suppress those thoughts. That didn’t work. They were consuming me. When I was finally honest with myself, with the Lord, and with close friends about my particular struggles, my anxiety turned from something I was trying to hide, to something the Lord and I were working on together. It was something that my friends were able to speak into and pray for as well. The Holy Spirit has enabled me to take very tangible steps in areas where my fear and anxiety held me back. I have begun to feel his presence with me more as I have called out to Him in moments of struggle. Confessing that I am weak and unable to master my thoughts without His help has made me dependent on Him and His power to fight this sin.

Am I done with my anxiety? No. It will likely be an ongoing fight throughout my life to confess my worries, doubts, and fears to the Lord, and ask Him to help me change. But I believe that is what He wants - He wants me engaged in my own growth, and He is always ready to help when I call on Him. 

If you are in Christ, that is true for you too. He isn’t angry with you. When you confess, He isn’t going to suddenly lash out at you. He loves you and wants to help you become more like Jesus. 

Practical Suggestions & Additional Resources

  1. Pray. You confess sin to God through prayer, but you can also pray for the courage to confess to another person, and ask Him to help you see any other things you need to confess (Psalm 139:23-24).

    • Identify someone in your life that you can be honest with about your deepest struggles. A DNA Group should be a safe place for honest confession.

    • While it may not be appropriate to confess all sins in your MC, family gatherings should be safe places to confess our misbelief, disbelief, and many of our struggles. Take steps to be honest with your MC.

  2. Grieve your sin. It is appropriate to mourn your sin and the hurt and separation it has caused (Psalm 51:17; James 4:8-10). Grieving your sin and recognizing its seriousness will help you repent and turn away from sin (2 Corinthians 7:10).

  3. Be specific. Don’t hide your sin in generalities. If you really want to be healed, you should confess exactly what you did and seek help in making specific changes to remove that sin from your life.

  4. Trust God. Believe God’s promises that you are forgiven, that confession is for your own benefit. (Psalm 16:11). Christ has paid for the sin you confessed, and there is no condemnation for those who trust in Him (Romans 8:1).

  5. Parents, confess your parenting and response mistakes to your children and ask for their forgiveness. These are opportunities to both practice and teach confession.

Resources

Heather Perrin
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