I Am The Man
The Life – part 9
The Practice Of Confession
TODAY – is our 8th week in this awesome message series that we are in, called, “The Life,” – a message series that has the potential to radically change your entire life in ways that you cannot even begin to imagine.
LISTEN - IF you embrace the principles that we’ve been talking about now since October 13th - you will be; a better; husband, wife, parent, worker, student, person – a better Christian… AND – Central will be a much more powerful and more effective church… UNDERSTAND – an incredible invitation has be placed in each of our hands…
I’d like to start off our time today by reading a parable that Luke records for us in the 14th chapter of his gospel… Jesus told this parable is response to a man who had misunderstood BOTH the reality and the opportunity of being a part of, of being a participant in, the kingdom of God.
READ – Luke 14:15-24
LISTEN - this parable is a stark reminder that there are so many lost opportunities in this life…. The GREATEST - of which IS, the lost opportunity of God’s invitation to know Him, through his Son, Jesus Christ. TO REJECT the opportunity to be right with God, to refuse to have your past forgiven and your future guaranteed THROUGH the mercy and grace found at the foot of the blood stained cross IS more than tragic… It is to reject the invitation to life and INSTEAD choose death…
BUT UNDERSTAND – even among those who have accepted the invitation offered through the crucified Christ are countless lost opportunities. LIKE the opportunities that are lost when we ignore God’s invitation to join Him in what He is doing in this world, when we ignore his invitation to live and experience a new way of life. A way of life that leads us to a richer and deeper relationship with God - AND that also enables us to become all that God desires and wants us to be… A way of life that WILL make an impact and change this world (one life at a time).
LISTEN – in a very real way, God IS throwing a party for His children, and we are invited… BUT UNDERSTAND - this parties participants, are those, who embrace spiritual disciplines; those who develop holy habits, spiritual practices that will lead them to; real growth, genuine change and authentic transformation…
QUESTION – is every believer, and will every believer embrace these disciplines, does every believer live this new life? YOU KNOW the answer to that, but way?
YOU SEE – like those who missed the party in Jesus’ parable, we are all full of excuses. One said, “I just bought a field. I must go see it. Please excuse me.” Another said, “I have bought 5 yoke of oxen. I am on my way to try them out. Please excuse me.” The third said; “I just got married, so I can’t come.”
SAME old excuses; I have places to go, things to do and people to see (I have a job, a career, I have my purchases, my recreation and my family) – I am just too busy right now to accept God’s offer to a new way of life – please excuse me…. Maybe I’ll have more time later…
QUESTION - did you NOTICE in the parable that the first two people basically said, “I choose not to come,” but the one who just got married said, “I can’t come - I’m not allowed.”
Erwin McManus in his book, Seizing Your Divine Moment, writes;
It is amazing how often the very ones who are supposed to encourage us to move forward are the ones who hold us back. I’ve personally known so many women whose hearts are filled with God’s passion and yet find themselves unable to seize divine moments (unable to live the new way of life) because of the passivity and opposition of their husbands
(and I have seen it the other way as well wife’s holding back husbands and also parents holding back their children). Our lives should be filled with friends and family members who long to move forward and capture all the life that is to be experienced.
QUESTION – do you right now, at this very moment long to move forward and capture all the life ‘in Christ’ that is to be experienced? LET ME TELL – you I most definitely am longing to move forward (like an Olympic skier on a downhill, I am leaning forward not back) – because I know like Paul’s says in Phil 3;
“I do not mean that I am already as God wants me to be. I have not yet reached that goal, but I continue trying to reach it and to make it mine. Christ wants me to do that, which is the reason he made me His. Brothers and sisters, I know that I have not yet reached that goal, but there is one thing I always do. Forgetting the past and straining toward what is ahead, I keep trying to reach the goal and get the prize for which God called me through Christ TO THE LIFE ABOVE.
AND LISTEN – the spiritual disciplines we have been talking about (the practice of; solitude, joy, prayer, giving thanks and study) will help, are designed to enable me to reach that goal, to get that prize, to live that life..
TODAY’S message is entitled, “I Am The Man.” AND – in this message we will talk about a spiritual discipline that is perhaps one of the most difficult to embrace – it is the SD that usually makes our palms sweat and our heart beat faster…. It is a SD that is almost universally misunderstood and seldom practiced. We read in James 5:16;
“Therefore, confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful & effective…”
This morning we are going to look at the practice of confession….
Prayer…
QUESTION – when you think of confessing your sins to another person what images come into your mind…? The practice of confession is one of the Holy Habits that Mark Buchanan talks about in his book, Your God Is Too Safe, I’d like to read the opening words of that chapter to you;
I have a confession: I used to hate confession.
Former President George Bush once became suddenly violently ill at a state dinner. He retched on the Japanese prime minister. The media caught it all: the president’s slow-motion blur of groveling, writhing humiliation; the anguish and revulsion; the presidents bodyguards panicking, scrambling, rushing about, diving in. The Japanese prime minister no doubt moments before, felt honored to be sitting next to the president of the United States. BUT in the next moment, the U.S. president was throwing up on his lap, and his spontaneous reaction was disgust.
THAT was the default picture I had when I thought about confessing; groveling to my knees, reeking stuff spewing from my mouth, the person receiving it pulling back in revulsion, those appointed to protect me panic stricken, and the paparazzi capturing the moment for all to see and forever remember.
Confession, I though was wrecking the dinner party.
I hated confession. BUT the image, I discovered, is wrong. Confession is not like that at all. It is, for sure uncomfortable and awkward to begin – as most holy habits are. But running, swimming, skipping, skiing, riding a bike, climbing a mountain – all are uncomfortable and awkward to begin.
WE think at first we’re going to kill ourselves doing this, locking two long, thin boards onto big chunky boots and flinging ourselves headlong down a snowy, icy slope. But after awhile, it’s exhilarating. It makes us feel alive.
At first we’d rather die than open up our inner life, it’s secrets and doubts and hurts and fears and wrongs, to someone else… BUT after a while it makes us feel alive…
LIKE I said ‘confession’ is the discipline that probably scares people the most and is also the most misunderstood of all the disciplines.
YOU SEE – historically the practice of confession has suffered abuse and it needs rehabilitating. On the one hand the Roman Catholic church instituted confession as a sacrament that the faithful were expected to practice regularly. NOW - this began as a good thing but in many ways throughout the years it deteriorated into mere mechanics and manipulation.
A guy named Frank McCourt in a book recounting his Irish Catholic upbringing, tells how he went from church to church until he found a half deaf priest who would mostly sleep through his confession. That way he could confess, “be in a state of grace just for going to confession,” and then just keep living as usual. YOU SEE – for many confession became a loophole FOR sin, AND not a cleansing of it.
UNDERSTAND – that is the danger when confession becomes institutionalized: Some see it as a cheaper way to do what you planned on doing anyway. SIN boldly, then confess. AND THAT WAY – you could avoid for a long time, maybe even a life time, the real issue of spiritual growth, the real issue of actually changing on the inside…
ON THE OTHER HAND - Protestants became so critical of the Roman Catholic practice of confession – that we dropped it all together (“we don’t need to confess our sins to anyone..”). AND – we ended up creating churches of smiling laughing, ‘nice’ people who are dying on the inside, BUT and are too afraid to tell anyone about it. We have become First Church of Whitewash Tombs, pretending, faking, hoping no one gets close enough to see through our disguise – we have become museums of waxed, painted on perfection, living shallow and superficial lives…
AND UNDERSTAND – that this also prevents real spiritual growth… FOR YOU SEE - rather than bear fruit, we’ve tended to paint it on and hope that nobody notices that we have no real roots or sap to grow fruit – in the first place…
AND – too add to our confusion about the nature & value of confession, our culture seems have an abundance of people who are wiling to spill their guts, to expose their lives – as they fill seats on talk shows like Jerry Springer & Jenny Jones to complete strangers (millions of them) disclosing the most disgusting, sordid and intimate details of their private thoughts and lives…
LISTEN – my goal to day is twofold – to BOTH define and to reclaim a valuable teaching that Almighty God – the all knowing one has placed in his word… AND - the way I have put our study together today is by answering 7 questions that should NOT ONLY clear up all the confusion, but should convince all those who have accepted Christ’s invitation to a new way of life that they need to practice biblical confession…
OKAY – I have just one more question before we begin -- Are you teachable?
The 1st question is;
What Is Biblical Confession?
First, Confession IS – a biblical teaching
After listing the various ways a person could sin, God says in Leviticus 5:5; “When anyone is guilty in any of these ways, he must confess in what way he has sinned…”
In Numbers chapter 5 we find listed some of the laws that God gave to Israel, verse 7 reads this way; “When a man or woman wrongs another in any way and so is unfaithful to the Lord, that person is guilty and must confess the sin he has committed.”
In Proverbs 28:13 we read; “He who conceals his sins does not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy.”
Confession is a biblical teaching…
Second, Confession WAS a biblical practice
In 1 Samuel chapter 7 – we read about God delivering His people from the hands of the Philistines (now they had gotten into that situation because of their rebellion against God)… And in verses 4 & 6 read;
Then Samuel said, “Assemble all Israel at Mizpah and I will intercede for you.” When they had assembled at Mizpah, they drew water and poured it out before the Lord (to symbolize the surrender of their entire life’s). On that day they fasted and there they confessed, “We have sinned against the Lord…”
In Nehemiah chapter 9 – we read of one of the things that those who came back to rebuild the wall of Jerusalem did; verse 2 says; “Those of Israelite decent had separated themselves from all foreigners. They stood in their places and confessed their sins…”
AND – in Acts 19:18 we read; “many of those who believed now came and openly confessed their evil deeds.”
Confession was a biblical practice…
Third, Confession Is A Command
AGAIN - Leviticus 5:5; “When anyone is guilty in any of these ways, he must confess in what way he has sinned…”
CIRCLE - “he must confess”
AND – James writes; “Confess (that word is an imperative, a command) CONFESS your sins to each other…”
Fourth, Confession Is Linked With Forgiveness
“He is to lay both hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the wickedness and rebellion of the Israelites-all their sins-and put them on the goat’s head. He shall send the goat away into the desert…” Lev 16:21
We read in Leviticus chapter 26; “But if they will confess their sin…I will remember my covenant with Jacob.” (40,42)
John writes in his first letter; “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
Confession is a biblical teaching a biblical practice, a command, is linked with the forgiveness of our sins – AND…..
Fifth, Confession is Presenting Our Real Self To God
It is bringing before God not the person we hope to be, but the person we actually are.
The second question in your outline is;
Why Do We Avoid Confession?
AND – we do avoid it… NOW - we see the first example of this way back in Genesis chapter 3. YOU KNOW the story;
· Adam & Eve disobey God and they eat from the forbidden tree in the garden (the only one that was forbidden)
· When God comes they hide
· He finds them they tell him they hide because they were afraid of their nakedness…
· THEN God asks them, “Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”
NOW UNDERSTAND – God is not looking for information here, He already knows exactly what they’ve done… NO – what God is looking for, IS confession. God is giving them the opportunity to come clean, to fess up, to admit what they had done wrong…. BUT instead of confessing, they blame (sound familiar?).
Adam, in a brilliant ploy of victim hood blames both Eve & God – “The woman you put here with me…” AND EVE – inventing the original version of ‘the devil made me do it,’ blames the serpent…
AND - from that moment one, the dye was cast, and avoidance, accusation, justification and excuse making began to crowd out confession (YOU KNOW, I wonder if the outcome in the garden would have been different if they would have confessed…? I think so)
Mark Buchanan writes;
This is the shape of borderland. It is maintained by a giant game of masquerade, concealment, finger pointing, blame shifting. No one is owning up to anything there, coming clean with anyone…
QUESTION - Why do we avoid confessing our sins? WELL - there are many reasons why; Let me give you what I think are the top 4;
One reason is;
Pride – UNDERSTAND – we don’t want to admit that we are wrong, that we have issues… We don’t want to admit that what we are doing really is sin. AND even if we do realize that it’s sin, Our pride won’t let us admit that we can’t handle it on our own…
A 2nd reason is;
Fear – fear of rejection… fear of lowering someone’s opinion of us… fear of being found out… fear of letting people see the real you… John Powell in his book, Why AM I Afraid To Tell You Who I Am, writes; ”I am afraid to tell you who I am, because if I tell you who I am, you may not like who I am, and it’s all I have…”
AND – there is also the fear of people talking and letting this ‘not so flattering’ stuff about you out…
A 3rd reason is the;
Sin itself - The things we do, the attitudes we refuse to change, the little pet things we cling to as though we’d lose our identity if we stop doing them. YOU SEE - the one of the biggest reason we don’t go to each other and confess our sins to one another and receive help and healing... (are you ready?) ...is because we like it. “Like what?” THE SIN!!!
UNDERSTAND – many times the very thought of going and confessing a sin to a brother is far, far from our mind, because to even come to the place of thinking about doing that, we must first have come to a place of wanting to turn from it! And many times we don’t…
A 4th reason is;
satan – LISTEN satan does not want you to fess up, to come clean about who you really are. He likes keeping things hidden, he thrives in the darkness… UNDERSTAND – the serpent knows the power of confession… He knows what can happen to his plans is you obey this command of God that is linked to forgiveness.
The 3rd question in your outline is;
What Happens When We Don’t Confess?
YOU KNOW - I think the best way to answer that – is to read some words that David wrote about 3,000 years ago. NOW – we know all David. A mighty warrior for God – took out the giant Goliath with just a sling shot, conquered powerful armies, worshipped God with all his heart, wrote some of the most powerful verses of the bible…”The Lord is my shepherd”
BUT – it’s not all good when it comes to David, is it? This mighty man of God had a great fall; (lies, adultery & murder)… AND – for over a year David kept this sin hidden. No one knew, no one had a clue, BECAUSE - David just keep on going through the motions of being the leader of God’s people. He never missed a service at the Temple…on the outside he looked good but inside he was dying…
“When I refused to confess my sins I was weak and miserable, and I groaned all day long. Day and night your hand of discipline was heavy on me. My strength evaporated like water in the heat of summer…” Ps 32:3,4
What happens when we don’t confess our sins?
We are weak & miserable
We groan
We feel God’s heavy hand of discipline
Our strength just evaporates…
Psalm 51 is another Psalm that David wrote about his fall into sin. In this Psalm David describes in vivid detail how he felt before he confessed his sin… he felt;
stained, dirty, guilty,
the things he had done wrong haunted him day & nigh, they stared him down,
he felt like he had ever done anything right – that he was just one big perpetual failure
He felt like he was a huge liar
He found it hard to really sing praises to God when it came time to worship
He felt he had lost all right to teach people about obeying God’s ways…
He had lost all the joy of his salvation
AND LISTEN – let’s be honest – all of us have had those exact same feelings…
The consequences of sin are significant…
AND LISTEN – another consequence of covering up, of not letting anyone into your real life is that Christian fellowship becomes nothing more than a masquerade… a game of hide and seek, of pretend. There is no real depth, no life. JUST – a bunch of people investing so much time and effort in the appearance of holiness and right living – that they miss the substance of it…
LISTEN – sometimes people get SO preoccupied with saving face that they fail to live under God’s saving grace. “If you really knew me, you wouldn’t like me. The only reason you like me is you don’t really know me…”
The 4th question in your outline is;
Who Do We Confess To?
First, We Are To Confess to God…
David writes in Psalm 32; “Then I confessed my sins to you and didn’t hide my guilt. I said I will confess my sins to the Lord, and you forgave my guilt.” (5)
Second, We Are To Confess Other Believers…
“Confess your sins to each other…” James 5:16
Why Do I Need To Confess To Another Person?
I don’t know about you – BUT in my house, when I speak, when I tell my kids to do something I expect, immediate obedience. I am the law – I take responsibility for their total welfare - what I say goes. I speak – you obey (it’s really quite simple). AND – for the most part my kids have bought into this philosophy. WHY? Because they have found the consequences of disobedience are severe – and that the rewards of a stable, loving home are a pretty good thing…
OKAY The question – we are at in our study (is a very important one) – why do I need to confess my sins to another person? AND – let’s be honest – a lot of believers ignore this… they don’t like it, they don’t obey it. they rebel & fight against it…. They say, “I only need to confess my sin to God…”
LISTEN – if you are a believer the only reason I need to give you today for practicing confession your sins to other believers is BECAUSE God said so – PERIOD! James 5:16 is pretty clear, not much figure language here, “Confess your sins to each other…”
QUESTION - Who are you AND who am I – do think that it’s our right to disobey a command of God. Who are we to tell God (the All Knowing One) that he was somehow wrong, that he was off track when he thought this command up.
WE need to understand & be reminded of a basic truth of life; God is God, and we aren’t!
That is why we don’t question God… NOW - we can have questions about God – BUT – we don’t question him… And there is a difference between the two.
UNDERSTAND – we can question why God says & does certain things – like God I really don’t get this, I don’t understand, it doesn’t make sense to me, but I know I know it must be true… BUT – we are NOT to question God – we are not too say, “Hey God I thought this thing through, I thought long and hard – AND - I’ve concluded that you are very wrong on this one big guy – and I am not going to listen to you.. and you’ll just have to deal with it ”
(They sure doesn’t sound good does it… AND that is how some people are with this command and with many others… NOW – an attitude like that would not fly in my house… DO – you think it really flies in God’s?)
There was a guy in the OT – perhaps you heard of him, his name was Job, and he question God… I love how God responded, God listened to Job for a while THEN he set Job straight…
Read Job 38:1-18
LISTEN – if you are here today – and you are rebelling against God’s command to confess your sins to another believer– I just want to make it as clear as I can that God is NOT okay with it…. get it?
OKAY – now that I got that over with…. Knowing our God; Let me ask you another question -- Does God ever make us do something that serves no purpose? That has no benefit for us?
I’ll answer that for you…. `NO – He never does… SO – even though we may not like it – even though we may make up every excuse in the world why we don’t need to do it – we need to trust God (he is much smarter than we are) that confessing our sins to other believers is for our own good….
REMEMBER – confession is when we quit all the deal making, the sidestepping, the mask wearing, the pretense and we get real – we get honest with God… I am the man! I have sinned against you! I’M SURE – everyone here would agree with that…. BUT LISTEN – the reality is this – IN ORDER to present our real selves to God, we need to be honest about ourselves to at least one other trusted and godly person.
NOW – don’t misunderstand me I am not saying that we are cleansed of our sin if we only confess to God – BUT very often we do not experience the reality of God’s cleansing UNLESS we have made an honest and open confession to another person.
CHECKOUT – What Richard Forster writes in his book, The Celebration Of Disciplines,
The person who has known forgiveness and release from persistent, nagging habits of sin through private confession (to God only)should rejoice greatly in this evidence of God’s mercy. BUT there are others for who this has not happened. LET me describe what it is like.
We have prayed, even begged, for forgiveness, and though we hope we have been forgiven, we sense no release. We doubt our forgiveness and despair at our confession. We fear that perhaps we have made confession only to ourselves and not to God. The haunting sorrows and hurts of the past have not been healed. We try to convince ourselves that God forgives only the sin; he does not heal the memory. But deep within our being we know there must be something more.
People have told us to take our forgiveness by faith and not to call God a liar, not wanting to call God a lair, we do our best to take it by faith. BUT misery and bitterness remain in our lives, we again despair. Eventually we begin to believe either that forgiveness is only for a ticket to heaven and not to affect our lives now, or that we are unworthy of the forgiving grace of God…
DO YOU SEE – what he is saying there? Sometimes even when we have come to God and confessed – we STILL; don’t feel forgiven, the guilt, the stain, the darkness , the doubts, the joylessness – REMIAN.
FRIENDS – listen up, pay attention to what I am saying – BECAUSE I know that you have felt just like that at times….
LET – me remind you of what sin wants to do in your life and mine….
Sin wants to remain hidden, to stay in the dark,
To isolate you from other believers
Sin wants you to doubt, to feel uncertain about God’s forgiveness
Sin wants the guilt and shame to keep haunting you
Sin wants to keep it’s evil claws dug into your spirit
Sin wants to be your master, to own you, to steal the joy of your salvation…
AND LISTEN – sin does this to us EVEN when we practice ‘private confession’ – even when we have fell to our knees and confessed to God…
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (German hung by Nazi’s at the age of 35) in his book life together has a chapter on confession – it is one of the most powerful discussions on biblical confession that I have ever read…. Bonhoeffer writes
Why is that it is often easier for us to confess our sins to God than to a brother? God is holy and sinless, He is a just judge of evil and the enemy of all disobedience. BUT a brother is sinful as we are. He knows from his own experience the dark night of secret sin. WHY should we not find it easier to go to a brother than to a Holy God?
BUT if we do find it easier, we must ask ourselves whether we have not often been deceiving ourselves with our confession of sin to God, WHETHER we have not rather been confessing our sins to ourselves and also granting ourselves absolution (forgiveness)
AND is not the reason perhaps FOR our countless relapses and the feebleness of our Christian obedience to be found precisely in the fact that we are living on self-forgiveness and not a real forgiveness? Self forgiveness can never lead to a breach with sin…
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THINK AGAIN about King David… He lived with his sin for over a year… THEN – God sends the prophet Nathan to him;
Read 2 Samuel 13:1-13
QUESTION – what do you think David thought about during that year? Did he never, not once, confess to God? Did he never get on his knees, broken and repentant, and as God or forgiveness? REMEMBER – David was a man after God’s own heart.
LISTEN - I am convinced that David did confess to God. AND that he probably got up from that confession and said; “Well, there. That’s enough. It’s done. I’ve said it. God knows I’m sorry…”
BUT the weight wasn’t gone. It still didn’t feel real… YOU SEE - David found that confession to God alone was not enough. David was still trapped. AND - he lived that year in borderland, practicing not confession, but avoidance from God…
LISTEN – it wasn’t until he confessed to Nathan then to the whole world through Ps 32 & 51 that David was sit free…
UNDERSTAND – God has given us an awesome gift, an incredible opportunity in Confessing our sins to another believer..
Bonhoeffer writes;
A man who confesses his sins in the presence of a brother knows that he is no longer alone with himself; he experiences the presence of God in the reality of the other person…
AND – listen 2 very important things happen as our brother helps us experience God’s presence;
ONE – we feel the full weight of the shame of our sins… we feel dirty, we feel embarrassed, like we have done something wrong,,, As Bonheoffer says; “Confession in the presence of a brother is the profoundest kind of humiliation, it hurts, it cuts a man down, it is a dreadful blow to pride…”
TWO – the second thing our brother standing in for God does, is he extends God’s grace, he reminds of the blood stained cross and the power forgiveness…
Bonhoeffer writes; “our brother has been given me that even here and now I may be certain through him of the reality of God in His judgment and His grace. As the open confession of my sins to a brother insures me against self deception, so too, the assurance of forgiveness becomes fully certain to me only when it is spoken by a brother in the name of God.
What Are The Results Of Practicing Confession?
Forgiveness victory over sin community healing
Transformation freedom spiritual growth effective prayers
Joy true fellowship deeper relationships
What R The Guidelines For Practicing Confession?
Beware of the too-little or too-much syndrome
Confession should not be vague, “I’ve done some bad things” and it should not be over graphic.
IF – you say too little, your confession is too generic and generic confession only produces generic forgiveness.. IF you say to much – you might in yourself or in the one you confess, so imprint things on the heart and mind that you plant the seeds of more sin. OR you might end up turning confessing into a kind of covert boasting…
Choose The Right Person To Confess To
[Choosing the right accountability partner is important because sometimes – the reason people have given up on practicing confession is because they have chosen the wrong person…]
CHOOSE SOMEONE…
· Who also wants to change, who is really wanting to follow Christ so the confession can be mutual
· Of the same sex (if married try not to choose your spouse, it may be hard for them to be objective…other family members may also struggle with objectivity)
· Who you know will be honest with you
· Who you can trust to not use the information against you
In your God is too safe, Mark Buchanan writes;
To whom should you confess. Eventually to those whom your wrongdoing has harmed. If your sin has harmed your family, your church, the nation, then your confession should reflect that. Don’t confess a sin that’s only hurt two people to the entire church. And don’t confess to only two people s sin that’s hurt the entire church.
But it is often good to begin with confessing to one person who has not been affected by your sin. This person should be wise, mature in the faith, aware of their own frailty, honest about he own sin & weakness. She should be earthy, able to laugh. She needs to weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice. She needs to be someone who is not shocked by sin but is frequently grieved by it, in herself as much as in others. She needs to be trustworthy not given to gossip. She needs to be pursuing God. She needs, above all and in all, to love. She can know the worst about you, and she’ll use that knowledge to pray for you and help you and not hurt you. Her love should cover a multitude of sins.
Oh, and this If you’re a man change all the pronouns above to ‘he’. Confession is intimacy. It is nakedness. It is exposing our inmost self. And so it is not old fashion prudery but time honored wisdom that confession should be man-man and woman to woman.
After sharing Pray together confessing your sin to God
Hold each other accountable..
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Prussian king Frederick the Great was once touring a Berlin prison. The prisoners fell on their knees before him to proclaim their innocence -- except for one man, who remained silent. Frederick called to him,
"Why are you here?"
"Armed robbery, Your Majesty," was the reply.
"And are you guilty?"
"Yes indeed, Your Majesty, I deserve my punishment."
Frederick then summoned the jailer and ordered him, "Release this guilty man at once. I will not have him kept in this prison where he will corrupt all the fine innocent people who occupy it."
