The center of Christian faith is living in communion with God in all aspects of one’s life. As we are not perfect, it is easy to fall out of this communion with God by not living up to every commandment all of the time. Thankfully, God knew we wouldn’t be perfect, so He gave Christians a way to restore perfect communion with Him; confession. Typically, when the word confession is said in a Christian context, the first definition that comes to one’s mind is an acknowledgement of their sins with the desire for forgiveness. While this is very true, there is another aspect of confession in the Christian context. Confession also means a simple declaration of one’s faith, commonly known as a confession of faith. In his article, The Heart of Christian Confession, Jeff B. Pool describes these two aspects of confession and their importance in Christianity. He continues to define the word confession in its most basic etymology as, “an act of speaking publicly with others” (377). This definition incorporates both aspects in which confession is used in Christian contexts, however, it is beneficial to more deeply define the term as it relates to faith.
Pool makes an insightful analogy to help us understand the aspect of confessing our faith. He shares a personal confession of saying “I love you” for the first time in a relationship. He explains that in this, a person is declaring their feelings, hoping for a reciprocated response, and asking for commitment and trust. Alas, “Christian confession first originates as something like the expressed love between two lovers” (379), Pool boldly states. God quite literally demonstrates this confession of love for us in the act of creation. God creates the world and all that is in it and declares it good, then, He created us, mankind, and he proclaimed us very good. (Genesis 1). We are God’s favorite creation because He loves us. It’s as simple as that, God created us out of love and He wants us to know how much He loves us. We are reminded of God’s great love for us countless times throughout the Bible, for example; Ephesians 2:4 says “Because of the great love with which he loved us,” John 13:34 says, “Just as I have loved you, you should love each other,” 1 John 4:18-19 says, “We love because He first loved us.” Pool calls to light the fact that this confession of God’s love for us is a divine call; “a gentle yet powerful invitation to communion with the very source of our being, the source of our healing, the source of our sustenance, and the source of our most intimate companionship” (379). The Bible also tells us of this calling from God in 1 Timothy 6:12 which exclaims “Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses.” This divine invitation to come together with God grants us blessings we cannot even comprehend. However, it also requires us to realize our individual significance to God, His place as the center of our lives and our world, and most importantly, our duty to publicly confess our love for Him in return. Romans 10:10 states “For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved,” reminding us just how necessary it is for us to confess our faith, or our love for God.
Additionally, this call exposes our need for God’s forgiveness and healing, which leads us to the second aspect of the word confession. Pool calls this side of confession “[Christian’s] traditional understanding: the acknowledgement of our sin as distortion of our created possibilities” (381). The “created possibilities” Pool mentions are all the blessings we receive from God’s divine call to perfect communion with him. Therefore, Pool’s statement of sin distorting that, means just what it says, our sin takes us away from communion with God and all of the benefits found in that. God knew that we would sin and fall away from Him, but thankfully, He loves us so much that He gave us a simple, relatively easy way to return to perfect communion with Him; He gave us confession. James 5:15 tells us this exactly, it says, “If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. Therefore, confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.” This is what God has granted us, to restore us to communion with Him after we sin. Henry Lyte proclaims in his hymn, Jesus, I My Cross Have Taken, “Yet how rich is my condition! God and heaven are still my own,” showing how blessed he feels that even after he sins, with confession he still has God. Confession is as easy as saying “God I am sorry” and you are forgiven, you return to perfect communion with Christ. In the Bible we are told forgiveness is for everyone, Acts 13:38-39 says, “Therefore, my friends, I want you to know that through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. Through him, everyone who believes is set free from every sin.” This is because of how much God loves each and every one of us and wants us to be in communion with Him. God longs to forgive us, all we need to do is ask. In the Book of Daniel, we can read a personal confession from Daniel. In his confession, Daniel states, “The Lord our God is merciful and forgiving, even though we have rebelled against him,” and he continues to say that, “We do not make requests of you because we are righteous, but because of your great mercy.” (Daniel 9:9,18) Through these verses we see how good and loving our God is, He wants nothing more than for us to repent and return to His warm embrace.
This truly is the message behind confession: love. God loves us, He wants us to be with Him always and He wants us to love Him, not for His own benefit, but for ours. He created confession, out of love, for us. He asks us to proudly and boldly confess our faith as love for Him. He asks us to confess our sins so that we may always be in perfect communion with Him. On this trip, I have ample opportunity to practice confession in both senses of the world, and ultimately to love. On The World Race, my mission is to confess my faith and my love of God in all the nations. I get to meet people each and every day who may not even know the name of Jesus and show them love. I get to confess my faith in every one of my actions. Each day I attend ministry here in Costa Rica and I love on children in the name of Jesus; this is me confessing my faith. However, I am not perfect. Somedays I lose my patience, somedays I forget to choose into what I’m doing, somedays I simply fail to love others the way I should and this is where I need to confess my sins to God. I repent and tell Him I am sorry and He forgives me, then I get to turn around, in perfect communion again, and live my life for Him. Additionally, part of this mission trip is living in community. In my community, I get to practice not only asking for forgiveness, but also, forgiving others. When you live with 50+ people, no matter how much you love them, you’re inevitably going to hurt people and people are going to hurt you. Therefore, we must take confession into our lives, we must ask for forgiveness and then act as Christ, forgiving others so that we may maintain a pleasant community to live in. In this, I will always be reminded of how much God forgives and how quick He is to do so. Like I said, the source of all this confession is love; so, in all my confessions throughout this journey, I will learn to love, I will grow in love, and my spirit will thank me for it.
