WHY TELL GOD SOMETHING HE ALREADY
KNOWS?
“… If he has sinned, he will be
forgiven. 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 and
effective.” James 5: 15b-16 (NIV)
Our Bible study group was examining
the well-known text of James, Chapter 5.
The topic of the wisdom and merit of confessing sin to one another was
being rather critically examined.
Finally all discussion was halted by one member’s remark, “I don’t buy
into the idea of confessing one to another!
In fact, I see little sense in telling God about my sins, as supposedly
he already knows them. Further, at
conversion all of our sins – past, present and future – were forgiven, so why
do have to ask forgiveness?
I felt quite prepared to deal with
such questions and provided my rather stock answers: Confession is for our sake
not for God’s. The purpose of confession
is to remove the barrier to fellowship that sin places between the believer and
Him. My answer seemed to at least
partially satisfy the questioner but later I found myself troubled that my
reply, although scripturally sound, did not communicate the real benefits of
confession!!
I knew from experience that confession
does ease one’s conscience and lighten our cares, but I pondered as to how we,
as believers, should approach confession.
The nature of our doing so seemed to rest on our image
of God. During our childhood some
of us were introduced to Him as a stern Judge who tallied our shortcoming in a
giant ledger and on one day we would have to account for every one of our
misdeeds! Consequently, seeking
forgiveness was like going to court with the hope of gaining some leniency in
our sentencing.
Hopefully, as we matured, a different
concept of our God emerged; One of as the Great Physician and Healer. So instead of going to court our confessional
time became more like going to a hospital with hopes of being healed rather than
censured. When our Lord was asked about
how often we should forgive, He replied, “seventy times seven”. If this was true of His expectations of we
mortals, how much greater might His mercy be for us!!
Our conception of God tempers our
approach to the Mercy Seat. Do we bring
a laundry list of our transgressions or do we seek not only forgiveness but
also a prescription for avoiding repetition of our misdeeds? We certainly do need to acknowledge our
shortcomings but more importantly we need to be willing to turn from them and
consult the Great Physician to assist us in better understanding and dealing
with them. This time of reflection
offers the opportunity to share our secret thoughts and maybe sinful urges; we
must bring them out in the open so together, He and we,
can deal with them. Through this process
we need to trust the Holy Spirit to guide us and assist us in discovering the
primary sources of our impure thoughts.
Are they prompted by that which we read, view on TV, or from
associations with certain people? As we share our concerns with Him gradually
we will not only find our wrongdoings decrease as well as our urge to commit
them.
A more complete reply to my student’s
query would be: “No, He does not need to be told. Actually, Confessionconfession
is part of His process to help each of us
to grow spiritually and reaffirm
that we are ultimately responsible to God for all of our words and deeds.
In summary I believe that confession
involves three factors:
1. The acknowledgment of our Maker and
that
our sins
offend Him.
2.
Examination
of our shortcomings and secret
thoughts.
3.
A prayer for strength to become more
sensitive
to our sinning and ask not only
forgiveness for for
our
transgressions but further for and
the ability ability
to forgive others who have sinned against
us.
This
I do believe and may the Holy Spirit continue to guide my understanding of this
important method to become more Christ-like in all my dealings. Amen.