How confession is the start of something beautiful …

The Bible has a piercing truth for all of us — our sins will find us out!

That truth was dramatically illustrated in a courtroom last year, as Reuters reported …

A 94-year-old survivor of Nazi Germany’s Auschwitz death camp gave his testimony in court on Thursday, face to face with a former guard, who is charged with helping in the murder of at least 170,000 people.

Leon Schwarzbaum, who lost 35 family members during the Holocaust, calmly recalled the camp’s horrors and when he had finished he directly addressed the accused, Reinhold Hanning, also 94, on the first day of his trial.

“I want to know why millions of Jews were killed and here we both are,” Schwarzbaum said, his voice beginning to tremble.

“Soon we will both stand in front of the highest judge – tell everyone here what happened, the way I’ve done just now!”

More witnesses are expected to testify in the trial, which is expected to go on until the end of May.

The guard thought he could get through life with his secret intact, but even in old age, his sins had found him out.

Countless people believe the lie that we can keep our sins to ourselves, but Jesus boldly and plainly taught the opposite:

“The time is coming when everything that is covered up will be revealed, and all that is secret will be made known to all. Whatever you have said in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered behind closed doors will be shouted from the housetops for all to hear!” Luke 12:2-3.

We read this blunt statement in Numbers 32:23 as well: “But if you fail to keep your word, then you will have sinned against the Lord, and you may be sure that your sin will find you out.”

Like the guard, we avoid the truth for fear that we will be exposed. That fear clouds a great reality for us — that there is no freedom from sin until we come to that place where we tell the truth about ourselves by confessing our sin.

Confession is the start of something beautiful!

That’s because …

When we confess our sins, we have finally arrived at a place of agreement with God. To confess our sin is to come to that place where we see God as holy and righteous, and our deeds as sin — we agree with God that we were wrong. Colossians 1:21 helps us understand that living in our unconfessed sin makes us God’s enemies …

“This includes you who were once far away from God. You were his enemies, separated from him by your evil thoughts and actions.”

But when we confess our sins, we stop battling against God and finally agree with Him.

Our confession is our first step toward God. One of the most amazing aspects of the Gospel is that God loves us so much that He pursues us out of His desire to reconcile us to Himself. When we finally see our sin for what it is, and confess it fully and freely before God, we are finally taking our first step toward Him rather than away from Him!

Our confession enables repentance. It’s not enough to admit to our sin, we must forsake it. But we’ll never repent (turn away) from our sin until we admit we’re sinners in need of a Savior.

You see, confession really is the start of something beautiful!

“People who conceal their sins will not prosper, but if they confess and turn from them, they will receive mercy,” Proverbs 28:23

It’s much like the story Chris Horton tells in Decision Magazine …

A shipwrecked man managed to reach an uninhabited island. There, to protect himself against the elements and to safeguard the few possessions he had salvaged, he painstakingly built a little hut from which he constantly and prayerfully scanned the horizon for the approach of a ship.

Returning one evening after a search for food, he was terrified to find the hut completely enveloped in flames. Yet by divine mercy this hard affliction was changed into a mighty advantage. Early the following morning he awoke to find a ship anchored off the island. When the captain stepped ashore, he explained, “We saw your smoke signal and came.”

Everything the marooned man owned had to be destroyed for him to be rescued!

To step toward God and receive His gracious salvation He has attained for us, we have to let the old life of sin be destroyed, starting with confessing the truth about ourselves and acknowledging our need for Jesus as Savior. When we do that with sincerity, something beautiful happens …

“If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by openly declaring your faith that you are saved,” Romans 10:9-10.

“But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness,” 1 John 1:9.

Have you made that first step toward God by confessing your sins to Him?

Scotty