DAILY ENCOURAGEMENT 12-01-2014 THE BENEFIT OF CONFESSION By Fred Trokie Are you struggling in regards to your Christian walk. Please do not feel alone if you are, all Christians experience this one time or another. I have been a believer since 1975 and I still experience it. Are you unsure in the area of forgiveness. If your like most of us, you sin, then confess it, and then later you commit the same sin again and then you feel guilty and the process starts all over again. So how do you get off this merry-go-round? First let me say that the fact that you feel guilty is a positive sign. It verifies that you are a believer. For if you were not a believer, why would you care about your sin in the first place. We need to understand Romans 8:1 1 Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. When you believed the gospel of your salvation (1 Corinthians 15:1-4) your sins were forgiven, past present and future. At that moment the penalty of sin was done away with. So if this is true, why must we confess our daily sins to God, does that mean if we die with unconfessed sin that we will lose our salvation? Absolutely not! We are eternally secure in Christ. The reason 1 John 1:9 tells us to confess our sins is because of fellowship and not our salvation. Lets look at 1 John 1:5-9 1 John 1:5-9 5 This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. 6 If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; 7 but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin. 8 If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Notice that this is about having fellowship. Verse 6 says that if we claim to have fellowship with God and yet walk in darkness (commit sin) we are not practicing the truth. Verse 7 says however if we walk in the light as God Himself is in the Light we then have fellowship. The Greek word for confess found in 1 John 1:9 is “ὁμολογῶμεν” (homologeo – Strongs# G3670) and means to admit, and to agree with God in regards to our sin. A prerequisite for fellowship with God therefore is our daily confession of any known sin (1 John 1:9). Actually we should confess the sin the moment we commit it. Hebrews 4:16 says: Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. When we commit a sin, we should confess it immediately for the purpose of continued fellowship with God. Again this has nothing to do with our salvation, which was settled the moment we believed the gospel (1 Corinthians 15:1-4). God desires that we have an ongoing relationship of unbroken fellowship with Him. 1 John 1:9 is an exhortation to continuous fellowship with God, who is always ready to forgive, anytime, anyplace, and anywhere. God Bless - Fred
Posted on: Mon, 01 Dec 2014 00:04:16 +0000