Confession

The following is a summary of writings taken from Carol J. Ruvolo's book entitled Before the Throne of God: Focus on Prayer (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 1999). This summary is taken from pages 78-84 of that book, which is a chapter written to guide our thoughts when we go to "CONFESS OUR SINS" to God in our prayers.

Have you ever tried to hug a stiff kid? Stiff kids aren’t responsive. And a lack of response invariably kills a good hug. In much the same way, unresponsiveness on the part of God’s kids greatly hinders their prayer lives and disrupts the fellowship with God that prayer is intended to foster.

Confessing our sin means agreeing with God about every aspect of it.

• We agree, first, that we actually committed the sin, without making excuses or shifting blame to another (Psalm 51:3).
• We also agree that our sinful behavior offends God and violates all He intends us to be as His children (Psalm 51:4-5).
• We acknowledge our tendency to deny our sin, as well as God’s faithfulness in driving us to repentance (Psalm 32:3-4).
• We admit that our sin has disrupted our fellowship with Him and that He alone can cleanse and restore us (Psalm 51:7-13).
• And finally we anticipate, in agreement with His revealed truth, the delightful blessings resulting from sincere confession (Psalm 32:1-2, 8-11; 51:14-19).
  

True confession of sin follows heart-felt repentance of specifically identified sins. And because the problem is in us, that can’t be done without the Spirit’s help. David recognized this truth when he closed his great psalm extolling God’s sovereign authority and love with the words,

Search me, O God, and know my heart;
Try me and know my anxious thoughts;
And see if there be any hurtful way in me,
And lead me in the everlasting way.
(Psalm139:23-24)

First John 1:9 is chock-full of comfort for even the stiffest of God’s guilty kids. I [Ruvolo] often wonder when I read it if John was thinking of the way Jesus, on the night of His death, comforted a stiff kid named Peter. The disciples had gathered for their last meal together and soon found themselves under conviction for the sin of pride. None wanted to humble himself to wash the feet of the others. But all must have been horrified when Jesus quietly accepted the task they had spurned.

I’m sure you could have heard a ripe fig drop in the courtyard as the Master made His way around the room with basin and towel. The silence was broken, as it customarily was, by the burly fisherman whose stiff unresponsiveness to his Savior’s tender conviction reverberated in his cry, “Never shall You wash my feet!” (John 13:8).

Jesus’ great love for Peter came through in His persistent pursuit of conviction: “If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me.” These words finally softened Peter. “Lord,” he replied humbly, “not my feet only, but also my hands and my head” (v. 8-9).

Jesus went on to bless Peter with the comfort of His cleansing forgiveness. By assuring His repentant disciple that he did not need a bath, but only a footwashing (v. 10), He reassured him of his secure position among God’s children. Although his stiff- ness had temporarily disrupted the harmony of this eternal relationship, humble confession of sin was all it took to restore it.

(The previous lesson from the life of Peter is a word-for-word copy of Ruvolo's writings--pages 83-84).