Day 9 - Confession is good for body, soul and spirit
Scripture focus: Are you hurting? Pray. Do you feel great? Sing. Are you sick? Call the church leaders together to pray and anoint you with oil in the name of the Master. Believing-prayer will heal you, and Jesus will put you on your feet. And if you've sinned, you'll be forgiven—healed inside and out. Make this your common practice: Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you can live together whole and healed. The prayer of a person living right with God is something powerful to be reckoned with. James 5:13-16 The Message
Confess – ekzomologeo – a word that means to declare, to say out loud, to exclaim, to divulge, or to blurt out - blurt out what?
Sins – faults – paraptoma – a falling in some area of one's life, a person who has accidentally bumped into something or one who has accidentally swerved or turned amiss and has thus thought something or done something that is erroneous.
Literally, this verse is saying blurt out when we've accidentally bumped into something, or taken a wrong turn, or maybe even done something wrong, or that has tripped us up. I want to challenge you to really wrestle with this verse. Notice how this act of confession of sins is a privilege not a poking. The confessor is acknowledging wrongdoing BUT ALSO stating their desire to become their true, God-created self. A socio-path will never make a heartfelt confession. They don't care whether or not they do wrong. A socio-path's only objective is to make sure everything works out to their advantage – regardless of how it affects others. Only a man or woman who desires healing – inside and out – need confess.
Confession isn't limited to the big stuff. Confession is intended to become a "common practice." It reminds me of the honeymoon period of recovery. A newly recovered person, having tasted the sweet fruit of honesty and simplicity of not having to keep all those lies straight, loves to confess. They like telling their story and having others listen empathetically. They've learned in meeting rooms that confession is actually a release. So they start taking it out of the meeting rooms. Once I was standing in line at the grocery store, and the lady waiting in front of me recognized me. She said, "Hey, I know you. You're that lady on TV who's always saying recovery is a God thing. I'm in recovery. About six months ago…" She tells her story as the customer service clerk rings up her groceries, my groceries, and three other people's orders too. She continues her story as our groceries are wheeled out, and she follows me to my car. An hour later, I head home. She is making confession a common practice. Eventually, she'll probably figure out how to do this with more discretion and moderation. But I'm not sure it'll be any healthier. Standing out in the cold listening to a random act of confession is worth it if this lady finds her true, God-created self in the process. May we all make confession a common practice!
Recommended reading: Exodus 25-27
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