Confession & Repentance

People often confuse two Biblical concepts:  confession of sin and repentance from sin.

Confession means to say the same thing about my behavior, thoughts, emotions, motives, goals, and desires that God says about them. It means to tell God that I’ve sinned and here’s how I did it.

Some people are great confessors. They freely confess their sins. They go into great detail about their sins; to the point, sometimes, where their remembering/confessing causes them to sin all over again in the telling. But in the Bible, confession of sin needs to be saying the same thing about the sin that God says about the sin. It is vile, hateful, filthy, loathsome, and evil. God hates it and we need to hate it too.

Confession needs to be accompanied by repentance from sin.

Repentance means, literally, to change your mind. It means to change your mind about who is going to rule your life: from yourself (your selfish desires, motives, behavior, thoughts, and goals) to God. You are going to lay down your life in this area, as in all others, and follow Jesus. And so, changing your mind means changing your thinking and your behavior—it means changing your life. If there is no change, there is no repentance.

Many people repent like Lot’s wife. She walked away from Sodom, but looked over her shoulder at the same time. She wanted the blessing of God, but remembered the “fun times.” She wanted to be a godly Christian, but still loved the world she was being brought out of. But we are called to something different; something higher, something more wonderful and grand.

And this reminds of us of our need to confess our sins.