After a weekend long of migraines I was able to get to a church service I had been missing. A young adults group and the topic of the day was confession. In itself it's a scary word that most people will avoid at all costs. In confessing we have to tell someone else what is wrong with our life, and once we do that it's not good enough just to confess it, we have to do something about it.
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 person is powerful and effective. NIV.
There are so many things that we tend to struggle with when we confess, the first starts even before we confess it. It starts with us realizing we have to confess it. That realization says that we know something is wrong in our life, it takes us out of the denial that we so often live in. Generally the realization comes from conviction in our life. We know in our heads the right thing to do, but it's a matter of doing it which is where it gets harder.
Confessing it to someone isn't any easier then realizing it's an issue, we have to be willing to lay our issues in front of someone who isn't going to let us slide on it. We have to speak to someone who will be honest and up front with us, no sugar coating. We live in a world of sugar coating, it's all about me and me being happy.
Then comes the part of doing something about it, do we really have to? That's where it becomes the worst. We know that something needs done, something needs to change and we have someone who will ask us about it, but the move is ours. We can't push it off onto someone else, we can't leave our change in someone else's hands. It's not easy, it's not fun and it's why we often continue doing what we know is wrong, because it's just easier to live that way.
It's easier but it's not better, it brings about an inner torment that we constantly have to stuff down and try and hide. How can we live at peace with others if we don't have it inside ourselves? The things we push down will eventually come up and when they do, it will not be pretty. It's like the dirt under your skin. If you've ever had a bad pimple you know that you want to hide it from the world, it comes up and you try everything you can to get rid of it and it just doesn't go away. You try and cover it up but it doesn't work, the cover up only makes it worse. We have to cleanse it, the faster we treat it and correct it the sooner it goes away. The blemish that was so clearly visible will go away, but if we leave it, continue to pick at it will stay. Confession is good for the soul, cleansing of our lives to make us blemish free.
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 person is powerful and effective. NIV.
There are so many things that we tend to struggle with when we confess, the first starts even before we confess it. It starts with us realizing we have to confess it. That realization says that we know something is wrong in our life, it takes us out of the denial that we so often live in. Generally the realization comes from conviction in our life. We know in our heads the right thing to do, but it's a matter of doing it which is where it gets harder.
Confessing it to someone isn't any easier then realizing it's an issue, we have to be willing to lay our issues in front of someone who isn't going to let us slide on it. We have to speak to someone who will be honest and up front with us, no sugar coating. We live in a world of sugar coating, it's all about me and me being happy.
Then comes the part of doing something about it, do we really have to? That's where it becomes the worst. We know that something needs done, something needs to change and we have someone who will ask us about it, but the move is ours. We can't push it off onto someone else, we can't leave our change in someone else's hands. It's not easy, it's not fun and it's why we often continue doing what we know is wrong, because it's just easier to live that way.
It's easier but it's not better, it brings about an inner torment that we constantly have to stuff down and try and hide. How can we live at peace with others if we don't have it inside ourselves? The things we push down will eventually come up and when they do, it will not be pretty. It's like the dirt under your skin. If you've ever had a bad pimple you know that you want to hide it from the world, it comes up and you try everything you can to get rid of it and it just doesn't go away. You try and cover it up but it doesn't work, the cover up only makes it worse. We have to cleanse it, the faster we treat it and correct it the sooner it goes away. The blemish that was so clearly visible will go away, but if we leave it, continue to pick at it will stay. Confession is good for the soul, cleansing of our lives to make us blemish free.
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