Many Christians make the mistake of living like "open books" to everyone. In an effort to, perhaps, come clean, they end up opening all their secrets and every little detail of their lives to others. They do that, hoping to receive acceptance, forgiveness, and a sense of belonging.
One question we've got to ask ourselves in light of that, however, is that do we really receive forgiveness when we open up our lives to others for scrutiny? Moreover, does confessing our sins to others make God's forgiveness more attainable?
When forgiveness is hard to find - or accept
Many of us long to be forgiven for our sins. In fact, all of us do - we just have different ways of showing it or reacting to it. Some people deny their wrongdoing in an effort to reject the nudges their consciences make. Some try to do good things in an effort to "atone" for their sins.
Some, however, make their lives plain for everyone to see. They hang their dirty laundry in the front yard, so to speak. They make their faults known to others, in an attempt to come clean and, hopefully, receive acceptance and forgiveness from others who will know what they did.
This is a very foolish thing to do. We need to practice discretion.
The truth is, the more we broadcast our sins to everyone in the hopes of being forgiven, the more fail to receive it, as well as to forgive ourselves. Not only do we label ourselves as "[insert condemning word here]" in the sight of all men, we also focus on the wrong thing: our sin. We forget to do one very important thing:
Ask for God's forgiveness.
How do we ask God for forgiveness?
Friends, if we want to be forgiven of our sins, we've got to ask God for it. Our sins separate us ultimately from Him, not just the people we offended, if ever we have offended anybody. God is the one we must talk to and apologize to. 1 John 1:9 tells us that:
"If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."
The truth is that God can and will forgive us of our sins when we ask Him directly. When we confess our sins to Him, He will forgive us. Repentance is a matter between us and God: we confess our sins to Him directly, with no need to tell anybody about it.
His forgiveness is a very personal matter, just like our relationship with Him. We can't ask others to pray to God for our forgiveness on our behalf; no, that's not possible. We've got to come to Him personally and admit our sins to Him ourselves.
Repentance not only allows our sins to be blotted out; it also allows us to receive much more. Acts 3:19 tells us,
"Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord..."
But what about confessing our sins to others?
Confessing our sins to others is a different thing. While we receive forgiveness and refreshing by confessing our sins to God and repenting of them, we receive healing when we tell others what we have done and then they pray for us. James 5:16 tells us,
"Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much."
