Confession of Our Sins
I believe when most of us hear the word "confession," we think of a court of law and someone admitting that he or she has committed a crime. We tend to see it as a mere admission of guilt and nothing more. That is not the way confession is to be done in the Biblical sense. When we confess our sins to God, we must be far more specific about what we have done and how what we have done is seen by God, or He will not accept our confession. We see this in Ezra's life when he found out that the leaders and the people of Israel had been intermarrying with the pagan peoples in the land, and they had begun to practice the idolatry of their pagan spouses. (Ezra 10:1) "While Ezra prayed and made this confession, weeping and lying face down on the ground in front of the Temple of God, a very large crowd of people from Israel - men, women, and children - gathered and wept bitterly with him." I pray that we will learn to confess our sins effectively from this example. Confes...