Posts Tagged ‘confession’

This short devotional from Lazaroo describes very well how we feel about confession and accountability. We shrink back in so many areas in our lives and put on masks. We hide from others and from God. We even hide from ourselves. The irony is that God sees us exactly as we are. Even when we are hiding from ourselves, we cannot hide from him.

Be Real

Posted using ShareThis

Part of me misses porn and masturbating sometimes. I have to remind myself that my heart is good (because that’s where Jesus lives) and I don’t have to do those things. The true me, the new me, doesn’t really want them. The thing is, I’m not perfect, so I waver and struggle with temptation at times.

I know my heart and I know that Jesus lives there…and it is good because Jesus says so. When the lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes and the pride of life scream to me that I am a dirty rotten sinner, I have to remind myself firmly that Jesus lives in my heart and it is good. He has taken my heart of stone and given me a heart of flesh. I just haven’t been completely transformed by the renewing of my mind yet.

This is no excuse to indulge the flesh. But it is the only effective inoculation I have found against the shame and despair that the flesh can throw my way. I have to get honest with myself and others about my temptations. Admitting a part of me misses it…that’s the truth sometimes. Getting it out in the open seems so risky, but is so necessary.

I don’t want to click post on this blog, but here goes…

While reading the verse of the day as delivered to my Google Reader account,  a familiar verse showed up.

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9)

This verse is often quoted by folks struggling with sin, as it well should be. If we could not find any forgiveness, then we are in big, big trouble! Those of us who are or have been trapped by an addiction to porn know all-to-well the deep hole we have lived in and how much we need God’s help to climb out of it.

What struck me as I read the verse this time is the latter part, “…and purify us from all unrighteousness.” The focus when this verse is quoted is almost universally about forgiveness. But what about being purified from unrighteousness? Isn’t that what we really want? Forgiveness is an amazing thing, but being cleansed of the unrighteousness that brought about the state from which I need to be forgiven is more amazing still! So with this being one of the more familiar verses thrown around in church circles, why aren’t more people experiencing the purification that it promises?

I have worked in sexual integrity ministry for several years now. In both face-to-face and online venues I have been the recipient of many confessions of giving in to the lust of the flesh.

• “I slipped.”
• “I got online.”
• “I masturbated.”
• “I fill-in-the-blank.”

I’ve given confessions of this sort many times myself. I have usually let them leak out reluctantly from a place of shame. My preference would be to keep it silent, let it slide, sweep it under the rug or at the very least minimize it. And as such, these weak little confessions are what I divulge. This, I believe, is the crux of why the purification promised in this scripture is missing.

It seems to me that if anything meaningful is to happen in response to my confession that the confession itself must be meaningful. The easy way out for some is to be overly explicit in describing how they acted out. While this may sound deep to the listener, it can often be an avenue of exhibitionism. Worse still, it may assuage the conscience of the confessor, but not result in any lasting change either. I can describe the mechanics of porn, actions and behaviors without ever really opening my heart up for inspection. And that is what confession is all about.

A quick word-study of the word “confession”, homologeo in Greek, shows it is defined as, “to say the same thing as another.” None of the tiny utterances mentioned above come close to saying the same thing about sexual sin as God does in his word. Taking this view is painful, and extremely necessary if we are to experience the purification from the unrighteousness that got us in this mess in the first place. It is another case of short-term pain for long-term gain!

There is obviously much more to say on this topic, but I will stop here for now.