Do you have trouble with confessing sin? It’s supposedly an easy idea – confess and be saved. Some churches encourage you to have someone you can go to (like an AA sponsor!) when you have or feel you want to sin and share with them. I love that idea – it’s just the shame I feel before I get to that person. Do you ever feel to ashamed to tell someone your sin? We have God before us always and we can tell him but some sin – if not all sin – needs to be brought into the light. In the light sin can’t hide but be dealt with and eliminated.
But what about the shame of telling someone – looking them in the face and confessing. Actually there is possibly another way of helping you and me to confess even as we are being tempted. It occurred to me a few weeks ago as I surfed on the internet. Theoretically I was looking for study material but in actuality I was being distracted by my favourite sites on my bookmarks bar. It dawned on me that sin works in a similar way – we are going along life happily with Jesus as our centre then out of nowhere comes the distraction, the enticement, the fall…
I began to write down what was happening to me. I wrote out what I was doing and what the distraction was. I named it, and prayed about it. I began to realise that writing down the sin or distraction before it took hold of my heart was an effective way of taking captive every thought and making it obedient to Christ. (2 Corinthians 5:10). Write down how you feel when you are being tempted. Write it down and give it to a trusted Christian friend or mentor to pray through together. perhaps you are alone and need to read aloud what you have written as a prayer. Share with God the confession of your heart. Place it at the foot of the cross and walk away. I wonder if this was what David did in his Psalms – declaring his pain, sin and redemption in word and song. Don’t let the sin or shame stop you from bringing it to the light – write it, confess it and let the blood of Jesus do its work. 1 John 1:9
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