‘How often do I need to confess my sins?’
That was a question asked during our Sunday morning Adult Bible Class this past Lord’s Day. The subject matter has had us examining the spiritual disciplines Scripture lays out for us as a means to growth in godliness. The ‘discipline de jour’ was confession (see yesterday’s post for some other thoughts on this topic.) This question was raised by someone & a response came from another that started us down a helpful path.
The basis for our confession is Christ and His finished work on the cross. When we do confess our sins, God is faithful-He has promised to forgive those who look to Him and He does not veer from that promise. He is also just-He has declared us, His children, justified and is just in doing so because of Christ’s sacrifice (Romans 3.23-26).
So, how often do we need to confess our sins? One time only and forever? Whenever I sin? Whenever I think I may have sinned whether I really have or not? The Bible seems fairly clear that confession and repentance is to be a part of our ongoing life as a Christian. God’s Word also sets no time table or hard and fast rule about how many times during the course of a day we ought to confess a sin to the Lord. Tm Chester, in his excellent book, You Can Change, offers up some helpful advice.
Sin comes from an idolatrous heart. Our desires loom before us and we seek to fulfill them. If those desires are not centered upon God, they are idolatrous, therefore a sin. The question still remains: how often do I confess such things? Hear from Chester:
It’s not necessarily wise to go on an idol hunt all the time or explore every motive. That might lead to unhealthy introspection. Our focus should be on God’s liberating truth. A good guide is to explore your sinful desires only when you see the bad fruit of sinful behavior and negative emotions in your life. (You Can Change, page 110)
An introspective navel-gazer if there ever was one
He goes on:
Introspective self-analysis is a recent phenomenon. Our evangelical forebears practiced self-examination, but it was different. They assumed a clear link between actions and the heart. Spotting that link was made difficult by the deceitfulness of sin, but the answer was not deep introspection but illumination brought by the Spirit and the Word. But we live in a post-Freud era. Sigmund Freud said that the roots of our actions and emotions are deep in our subconscious. Because they’re subconscious, we need to dig them out by means of deep and endless introspection. We often bring this model to sanctification. We think we need some form of analysis or counseling to uncover the hidden depths of our actions. In reality, our need is to look to Christ. Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones writes, ‘We cross the line from self-examination to introspection when, in a sense, we do nothing but examine ourselves…. It we are always talking to people about ourselves and our problems…it probably means that we are all the time centered upon ourselves.’ (You Can Change, page 110-111)
It is God who changes me. I can’t – repeat that to yourself several times until it sinks in – change myself. When you sin, confess it; not every time you think you sin. If I did that, I’d never leave off confessing! For those of you still longing for a guideline (caution here: holiness is ‘hard’ work because a heart wholly devoted to God is a tough demand, but a list of ten rules…well, I can cope with that), here’s my advice:
When you rise up in the morning, give thanks to God for the good news that Jesus Christ has died for your sins, including the ones you’ll commit that day. Rejoice in the gospel, then go out and live it. When you lie back down at night, just before you go to sleep, thank God for the gospel, by which your sins are forgiven. If there are specific sins which come to mind, agree with God that they are sins and ask His forgiveness. Then go to sleep with the peace of knowing that He has done so. Remember this (from Tim Chester): Sin is never the last word for the Christian. Grace is always the last word. (You Can Change,177)
