Dive into confession, and find liberating joy!

It’s time to Fess Up! - Anytime we are confronted with the sin in our lives we have a choice to make, we can conceal or we can confess.

Maybe it's as simple as fessing up to eating the last ice cream bar in the freezer, or maybe it's fessing up to something else that you don’t want anyone to know about. You cannot heal what you hide! Psalm 32:3-4 says, “When I refused to confess my sin, my body wasted away, and I groaned all day long. 4 Day and night your hand of discipline was heavy on me. My strength evaporated like water in the summer heat.”

We fear the consequences of confession more than the consequences of concealment. You can run from God but he is always running after you, waiting for you to turn and confess your sins to him. Healing happens when we stop concealing our sins. It's time to own up! - We think that sometimes we can manage our sin or manipulate a situation. But the weight of sin will get heavier if we don’t own it.

Psalm 32:5 NLT, “Finally, I confessed all my sins to you and stopped trying to hide my guilt. I said, ‘I will confess my rebellion to the Lord.’ And you forgave me! All my guilt is gone. Confession is telling the truth.“

Confession is allowing God to look at each piece of our life. Confession is telling the truth. You might ask, why do I need to confess anyway?

After all, Hebrews 4:13 NLT says: “Nothing in all creation is hidden from God. Everything is naked and exposed before his eyes, and he is the one to whom we are accountable.”

God does see and know everything, so what good is owning up and confessing? Confession is not only just telling the truth but also agreeing with God. We don’t confess because we need to restate the facts. Confession is agreeing with God, that what I did was wrong. That the thing I have been hiding is not of God, the way I have been talking is not of God, and the way I act behind closed doors is not in agreement with God’s plan for my life.

We confess because we want to be free. There is the pain of confessing, but there is a pain of concealing and only one of those pains brings healing. At the end of verse 5 it states it all, I will confess my rebellion to the Lord.” And you forgave me! All my guilt is gone. It’s time to clean up! - Only you won’t be the one cleaning up! That’s not your job. When we invite Jesus into our lives, he comes in and cleans up! But we have to confess it, we have to let go of our sin in order for him to take it. Being a Christian isn’t about being perfect. When we hide our sins, when we hide our guilt and don’t confess it, we are saying we don’t want that forgiveness or cleansing that we can only find in Jesus. We just have to allow him to do it.

Psalm 51:10-12 NKJV says, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me. 11 Do not cast me away from Your presence, And do not take Your Holy Spirit from me. 12 Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, And uphold me by Your generous Spirit.”

God wants good things for you! God is generous in his forgiveness. Every time we mess up, all we have to do is confess and agree that we messed up and ask God to cleanse us, it's as simple as that and he forgives us and our guilt is gone! The word forgave in verse 5 means to carry something away. Think about it this way, When we confess our sins to the Lord, God agrees to separate our sins from who we are. By confessing our sins, God is saying, those things you did do not define you, you are not what you did last night, last week, or last year. God separates the actions from the person and what does he do with those sins.

Micah 7:19, “Once again you will have compassion on us. You will trample our sins under your feet and throw them into the depths of the ocean!”

We are not defined by our confessed sin. And I can have liberating joy because I have confessed my sin to the Lord.

Before Jesus, Colossians 2:13-15 says, “You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins. 14 He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross. 15 In this way, he disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities. He shamed them publicly by his victory over them on the cross.”

Pastor Anna Wellnitz - New Living Family Foursquare Church