Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray
for each other so that you may be healed.
--James
5:16
Confession is not to
be used as a means of deflection. “Hey, can’t you see I am hammering myself
here? That means you can’t touch me.” Some people are like a puppy that knows
he is about to be disciplined, so lies on his back. “Ha, Ha, can’t touch me
now!”
Downplaying by comparison
also has no part in an authentic confession. “Okay, I know what I did to you
was wrong, but I am nowhere near as bad as those guys. Did you see what he did in my circumstances?” Right. You
are only a run-of-the-mill offender. No doubt God and the offended will feel so
relieved.
Along this same line
of thought—Keep your “buts” out of any confession. Whatever you say before the
word “but” will be negated by what follows your “but.” I know I was wrong but your faults tripped me up, I was so
tired, hurt, frustrated, in a bad place, lonely, blah, blah, I was wrong but it
wasn’t all my fault blah. Not
exactly oozing with contrition here, are we. All this is is a defense under the
guise of a confession, seeking to mitigate the penalties of your offense.
The purpose of
confession is not so that you can feel better about yourself, get your spouse
off your back, or convince your constituents you are still fit for office. “Coming
clean,” as an end game, is not a confession: it’s only a calculated admission.
Confession needs to
be down to the depths of the offense. Asking you to forgive me for not keeping
my promise to be on time to a party you were throwing is different from
confessing that I betrayed your trust and stole from you. Too many people’s
confessions of egregious offenses sound as if they merely stepped on the
offended party’s toes. Confession minus an appropriate and genuine contrition leaves
us mired in our offense and the offended wondering if we had a clue as to how deeply
he was wounded.
Confession is to
“each other.” This is broader than only confessing to the offended party. Here,
James is telling us that confession includes having people in our lives with
whom we lay it all out. I have a group of people in my life who know every
fall, fault, flame out, and failure there is to know about me. It’s all too
easy to go to God about my “issues,” but never confess to others. If God is the
only one I confess to, how do I know if I have gone deeply enough? How will I
know if I am actually being too hard on myself? How will I know if I am
hammering on a smaller offense so as to hide from a larger one? How do I know
if my confession to God-alone isn’t actually riddled with vanity and the fear
of what others will think of me? And, James again, if I don’t share with others
then there are no “righteous” people who will be standing with me, praying for
me, and holding me accountable, as I seek to make amends and change my behavior
or attitudes. If you don’t have such friends, pray for some. And in the mean
time find a trusted minister or spiritual advisor with whom you can confess.
Notice that James
writes of how healing comes with confessing our failures to each other. How
many of us are suffering with emotional or physical infirmities because we are
all twisted up by what we have hidden? I am convinced that many of those who
are in and out of counseling, yet never seem to be free or healed, actually
don’t need therapy as much as they need to go and reveal what is hidden by confessing
what they have done and left undone.
Why is it that
confession is so difficult for us? I’m sure there are a number of underlying
reasons: pride, fear of consequences, and hardness of heart, come to mind. Yet
I wonder if an overarching reason is our view of God. “Man, if I tell Him this,
He is going to blow a gasket.” Helloooo? An unsuspecting omniscient God is an
oxymoron. The New Testament revelation of God in Christ is clear. When we
confess our sins to each other it is to and before the God who, like the father
of the Prodigal Son, continually and lovingly looks for our return, when He will
give mercy, forgiveness, and healing to the penitent confessor—and then throw
us a party!
Copyright,
Monte E Wilson, 2014
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