December 26, 2024

I John 1.9 (NIV)

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

Unconfessed sin creates a barrier in our relationship with the Lord.*

Confessing our sins to another person will not save us. In this verse, John tells us that we are forgiven if we confess to God that we are sinners (as opposed to denying it), taking “complete responsibility for our decision to disobey.”*

Many of us have the seriously mistaken idea that every time we sin, “we drop from 100 percent forgiven down to zero again and remain there until [we] go through some kind of ritual prayer of confession and asking for forgiveness.”* To believe that is to believe that your salvation depends on something you do – that is, that you are saved by being “good enough.”* Do we really believe that we must keep ourselves saved by our own efforts?* Jesus died to deliver us from that prison of hopelessness.

John tells us that God is faithful and just and will forgive us. This is not justice in the strictest sense. Forgiveness is not an act of justice but an act of mercy.* It is just that he forgives us only because he has promised that he will.*

Confession must come before cleansing.*