Understanding Confession and Repentance

We need to confess our sins to God. That is, we need to agree with Him that it was sin. It wasn’t a “mistake” or “stupidity” or “oops” or…it was sin. It separated us from Him and alienated us from others. It’s not in our nature to sin any longer. We are no longer under the control of sin.

We also need to confess to each other. There is healing in confession. We are told to

Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. James 5:16 (New Living Translation)

It’s not good enough to simply keep our sin to ourselves, after all even private sin hurts our relationship with God and therefore hurts our relationship with each other.

We also need to understand repentance.

There are two words for “repent” in the Bible. The first is Greek – metanoeo. It means to change your mind or your thinking. The second is Hebrew – shuv. It means to turn around and go in the opposite direction. To repent means to do both. Change your thinking and turn around and go in the opposite direction.

David was a man after God’s own heart, so when he sinned, he knew how to come before God and be made right. He wrote in Psalm 52:

Purify me from my sins, and I will be clean;
wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.?Oh, give me back my joy again;
you have broken me—? now let me rejoice.?Don’t keep looking at my sins.
Remove the stain of my guilt.?Create in me a clean heart, O God.
Renew a loyal spirit within me.?Do not banish me from your presence,
and don’t take your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and make me willing to obey you. Psalm 51:7-12 (New Living Translation)

I’ve connected with Serena Woods on Twitter and have her book that I’ll be reading over the holidays. I check out her blog  Grace is for Sinners often- the title intrigued me so much I had to find out what her message was. It’s a good one. What she says in this video is what I’m trying to get across in this post. What she says about what to do if you’re in an affair applies well to every type of sin that entangles us: