We don’t have to tell others about our sins, but we do have to tell God. When we keep silent and try to hide them, they can eat away at us and steal our peace. David said, ‘When I refused to confess my sin, my body wasted away, and I groaned all day long. Day and night your hand of discipline was heavy on me. My strength evaporated like water in the summer heat’ (Psalm 32:3-4 NLT). Confession can do four things for us: 1) It lets us experience God’s forgiveness. He already knows about our sins, but we can’t experience His forgiveness if we make excuses or try to shift the blame onto someone else. ‘If we confess our sins, he will forgive our sins.’ It’s up to us to make the first move. 2) It restores our emotional and physical energy. Hiding or denying our sins is very draining, but confession and true repentance lift the weight of guilt off our shoulders. David said, ‘My strength has failed because of my guilt’ (Psalm 31:10 NASB). But he also went on to write: ‘Finally, I confessed all my sins to you and stopped trying to hide my guilt…And you forgave me! All my guilt is gone’ (Psalm 32:5 NLT). 3) It lets us move on. Receiving God’s forgiveness wipes the slate clean and lets us make a fresh new start. 4) It helps us grow. We can learn a lot from our mistakes. When we confess them to God and accept His forgiveness, we can begin to make them work for us instead of against us by seeing them as learning opportunities rather than failures.

What Now?

Do you have any unconfessed sins? Today, make the first step to moving on from them by making some time to tell God about them and receiving His forgiveness.