Honest Confession of Sin

 God's Word is very clear about confession of our sins. If we do it well, God will forgive our sins and cleanse us from unrighteousness. However, if we do it in the wrong way, it is totally ineffective. We need to make sure we know how to confess our sins and we do it every day. David gave us a great example of honest confession. (I Chronicles 21:8) David was a believer, no doubt. However, David called for a census to be taken, which he knew was a sin. He was doing it in pride. Maybe he thought God would overlook this sin, because of the good things he had done. Joab even tried to talk him out of it. David went ahead and sinned. As soon as the census was done, he knew he had sinned, and he confessed it to God honestly. Let's look at the characteristics of his confession, because we all need to confess like this.

We must admit our sin to God. We must show God how sincere we are and how serious our sin was. Every sin is an affront to God. This is especially true when we sin, as believers, and we do what we know to be a sin. We must not make excuses or call it a "mistake." We must call it a sin and confess that we did it, taking responsibility for our actions. Then, we must ask God to cleanse us, to remove our iniquity, We throw ourselves on His mercy because He alone can forgive our sins. Finally, we admit the foolishness of our sin, that we acted in rebellion to God as a fool would act. All of this says what God would say about our sin, and He hears our confession when we do it like this. He cleanses us and makes us right again. Then, we can be stronger, so we don't commit that sin as readily in the future, or maybe not at all.

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Tomorrow, I intend to read I Chronicles 22-24.