Verse of the Day
“But if we confess our sins, God will forgive us. We can trust God to do this. He always does what is right. He will make us clean from all the wrong things we have done.”
1 John 1:9 ERV
Lesson of the Day
Today, we are going to address prayers of confession. Confession can be a controversial subject when discussing the Catholic faith. I have heard many people say that we should not confess our sins to another human being, but I must disagree because James 5:16 says, “Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results.” James 5:16 NLT
This does not mean that we must confess our sins to a priest or pastor to receive God’s forgiveness. We confess our sins directly to God, and He forgives us through Jesus Christ. However, the Bible teaches us that we can confess our sins to another believer so that person can pray for us. Therefore, I do not believe it is wrong to confess to a priest as long as the priest is praying to God on your behalf. If that priest is righteous, then his prayer can be powerful and produce wonderful results.
Don’t get me wrong—I am not Catholic. I am a believer in Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. I believe in the Trinity: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. However, I wanted to voice my opinion about confessing our sins to one another. Now, let’s get back to prayers of confession.
A prayer of confession is just as it sounds: we confess our sins during our prayer time. We all sin, have sinned, and will sin again. First John 1:8 says, “If we say that we have no sin, we are fooling ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” 1 John 1:8 ERV
Therefore, do not fool yourself into thinking that you are above sin.
Job was a good and faithful servant of the Lord, but that does not mean he was completely without sin. When God allowed Satan to test Job, Job lost nearly everything. Job did not understand what he had done to deserve such suffering, so he questioned God and tried to prove that he had not committed a sin deserving of everything that had happened to him. However, Job was still human and could have done something wrong without recognizing it. When God confronted him, Job admitted that he had spoken about things he did not fully understand, and he repented.
Job’s children regularly took turns having dinner parties. Afterward, Job offered sacrifices for them because he thought they might have been careless and sinned against God during their parties. The Bible does not tell us whether they actually sinned, but Job understood that it was possible. Likewise, we may not always recognize every sinful thought, action, or attitude in our own lives.
We are all flawed, whether we consider ourselves good people or not. Therefore, when we know that we have sinned, we should confess it and ask God for forgiveness. Even when we are unaware of our sins, we can ask God to reveal anything within us that does not please Him, forgive us, and give us clean hearts.
Just to reiterate, we can combine different types of prayer. We can pray a prayer of confession along with prayers of adoration and thanksgiving. We only need to pray focused prayers when we need to speak to God about something specific. If we are sick, we can pray for healing. If we are mourning, we can pray for comfort. These are only a couple of examples, but there are many things that we can bring to God in prayer.
Encouragement
I encourage you to find someone you can trust to confess your sins to so that person can pray for you. However, you should protect yourself by being careful about whom you share your personal business with. I have shared my business with pastors who later shared it with others and with the congregation. I have also shared things with saints whom I thought I could trust because we were studying and praying together. However, my heart was hurt when they later told me that I should not have shared my personal business.
We should be able to confess our sins to one another, pray for one another, and keep each other’s personal business private. However, remember that we are all sinners, so please be careful about whom you trust. I do not want your trust to be broken, but I do want you to have someone trustworthy who can pray with you. If you do not have that person, know that you can always confess your sins directly to God. You can trust Him, and Jesus intercedes for us.
God bless you.
Prayer
Dear Heavenly Father, we come to You confessing all of our sins, both known and unknown. We have sinned against You, and we ask that You forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Give us clean hearts so that we may please You, Lord.
Guide us through this life. Help us live the way You command us to live. We owe our lives to You, Lord, and we want to do whatever we can to help build Your kingdom. May Your love fill our lives, and may You protect us from evil.
In Jesus Christ’s name, we pray. Amen.