Confession can't be what it seems.

Confession really always gets a bad rap. The one scene I always think of is from the movie The Ringer. Johnny Knoxville is at the confession booth telling the priest that he is rigging the Special Olympics. Instead of saying his sins are forgiven, the priest throws him out of the church and calls him a sick man, or something like that. Wouldn't that be unfortunate if only some sins were actually forgiven? But that simply isn't true. Christ forgives all our sins.

Does he actually forgive all our sins? The answer is yes, but this brings up another problem. If we have these sins and we keep asking for forgiveness for the same sin, will it really be forgiven again? Is it really repentance from sin if we go on and keep sinning?

John Calvin defined sin as this, "a true conversion of our life to God, proceeding from a serious fear of God, and consisting in the mortification of the flesh and of the old man, and in the vivification of the Spirit."

Repentance is turning away from sin, it's the only way that we can show that we are truly converted. This disheartens me because I wonder what about those that fall back into sin and keep doing it and have to repent all over again. Are they really converted? Are their sins forgiven or do they not actually want the forgiveness because they don't try hard enough to stop sinning? The fact of the matter is that Jesus calls us to repentance and Christ forgives sins through his death on the cross.

Confession, I think, is a primary part of repentance. It is of utmost importance. The first thing we do when confessing is examining the conscience. We must first examine ourselves and see our sin. God does have rules and laws that he wants us to follow in accordance with his being. Not following God's moral will, leads to sin. If we don't understand that we don't know our sin and we can't confess. There isn't anything to confess.

Once we realize our sin, the direct product of that is sorrow for sin. We regret the sin we took up against the almighty God. Feeling regret or sorrow is the product of a changed heart. If you don't realize it was a bad thing and want to turn away from it then you obviously are not confessing or repenting correctly.

The tricky part with confession is, who do you confess your sin to? Yes confessing your sin to God is really important. But I think that can get repetitive. We can start to not feel bad about sin because God's so far away and we can just think, "Oh I'm sorry I won't do that again," and immediate proceed to do it anyways.

Martin Luther one of the great fathers of the reformation against Catholicism loved the confession booth. He loved having someone to tell his sins to. He knew however that the priest couldn't actually forgive his sins but the reaffirmation that his sins are actually forgiven by Christ was always joyful. Luther would be so convicted of his sin that sometimes he would be told that the small things he analyzed weren't really all that important.

Luther is one of the reasons why I think confessing our sins to another human being is really important. Confessing our sin to other people not only can help us realize it has been forgiven but keep us accountable to not keep on sinning. The other night my friends and I went for a walk and hung out at a gazebo on a lake just down the road. There we confessed what had been troubling us. One after another we talked about what we struggle with. Each one of us seemed to have a big dilemma in our life. Nobody knew how to fix it but getting it out there and talking about it seemed to help. Through confession we realize were our real faults are. Openly confessing the things we deal with on a regular basis really makes us think through them and it helps make clear what we should do to fix it. Also that other person we confess to, can and hopefully will keep us accountable. Accountability is really important because sin is so overwhelming and consistent, that we need something consistently pulling us away from it.

So next time you find yourself caught in the same routine of asking for forgiveness over and over again, just ask a friend to listen or find a mentor. It really helps and I promise it will make you feel better. :)