Confession of Sin
To REPENT is to TURN AROUND and go a different direction.
"Our Father,...
Forgive us...."
We need to confess our sins to God, for He has promised,
“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (I John 1:9 NKJV)
If we confess the sins of which we are aware, God will forgive us of those sins and cleanse us from the sins of which we are unconscious. God brings to our mind the sins we need to confess, and then graciously cleanses us from all unrighteousness through the blood of Christ shed for those sins. Jesus commended the sinner who prayed, “God, be merciful to me a sinner.”
The Westminster Confession of Faith in speaking of our good works, says, “as they are wrought by us, they are defiled, and mixed with so much weakness and imperfection, that they cannot endure the severity of God's judgment.”
I realize that isn’t the easiest doctrine to understand, and especially not when we are the accused and don’t want to believe it to start with. So let me teach this the JESUS way, with a parable or illustration of what I mean.
My granddaughter painted a beautiful picture entitled, “The Enchanted Woods.” It is an oil painting, and normally it hangs by my desk in my home. My granddaughter was only 9 years old when she painted it. Her painting ranks (in my eyes) with the paintings of Leonardo da Vinci or Michelangelo, even though it was only her second oil painting (her first hangs in her own home over the fireplace). I suppose you are thinking that I only value her painting so much because she is my granddaughter. That could be! The time may come, if she pursues her study of art, when she will consider these early, childhood efforts, as trash. She will see many defects in them, in the shadings and the colors, in the trees and mountains, the perspective--all of it.
She may say, “It wasn’t very good.” But to me, her grandfather, it is very good, and I am pleased to have her picture hanging where I can see it every day.
I love that picture, because I love her. And that’s how God loves our work. When we offer our good works to God, He, out of love for us and for His Son Jesus to Whom we belong, accepts them and calls them good. Even my best is sinful before God, but because He loves me, He loves what I do through His Son Jesus Christ.
Our spiritual forefathers, the Puritans, often grasped these concepts of grace better than people in our modern culture do. I commend to you an excellent book entitled, The Valley of Vision, with the subtitle, A Collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions, published by The Banner of Truth Trust, 1975. (See Footnote 1) It was edited by Arthur Bennett, who writes, in the Preface:
“The strength of Puritan character and life lay in the practice of prayer and meditation. Many of those who held the doctrines of grace wrote down a record of God’s intimate dealings with their souls, not with an eye to publication, but, as in David Brainerd’s case, to test their spiritual growth, and to encourage themselves by their re-perusal in times of low spiritual fervour.”
He also states, “Many ministers advised their congregations to put their private prayer thoughts on paper and vocalize them. There thus emerged an important corpus of inspiring Puritan prayers that are still largely unused.”
One rich prayer of confession appears on page 72. I quote what I regard as the best of that prayer here. The portions in italics are my words representing a slight change from the way the original was written.
“O CHANGELESS GOD,
Under the conviction of thy Spirit I learn that
the more I do, the worse I am,
the more I know, the less I know,
the more holiness I have, the more sinful I see I am,
the more I love, the more there is to love….
O Lord, I have a wild heart,
and cannot stand before thee;….
How little I love thy truth and ways!
I neglect prayer,
by thinking I have prayed enough and earnestly,
by knowing thou hast saved my soul.
Of all hypocrites, grant that I may not be an evangelical hypocrite,
who sins more safely because grace abounds,
who tells his lusts that Christ’s blood cleanseth them,
who reasons that God cannot cast him into hell, for he is saved,
who loves evangelical preaching, churches, Christians, but lives unholily.
My mind is a bucket without a bottom,
with no spiritual understanding,
no desire for the Lord’s Day,
ever learning but never reaching the truth,
always at the gospel-well but never holding water.
My conscience is without conviction or contrition,
with nothing to repent of.
My will is without power of decision or resolution.
My heart is without affection, and full of leaks.
My memory has no retention,
so I forget easily the lessons learned,
and thy truths seep away.
Give me a broken heart that yet carries home the water of grace.”
PRAY that prayer, dear reader. Don’t just SAY it; PRAY it. Let your soul soak in its awareness of sin and appreciation of grace.
Footnote 1
The prayer, “Paradoxes,” is from the book, The Valley of Vision,
© The Banner of Truth Trust, 1975.
You may order it from them at P. O. Box 621, Carlisle, Pennsylvania 17013.
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