Practicing Forgiveness and Repentance

It’s concerning that a lot of churches do not preach about forgiveness and repentance. It’s almost like pastors forget that our Messiah is coming soon, or they forget that death can come at any moment. They lead the congregation to believe that the sinner’s prayer can lead them to Heaven. They fail to preach about sin and how to live a holy life.

What is more concerning is that the few pastors that do preach repentance, never preach about the confession part of the sinner’s prayer. 1 John 1:9 is clear that if we confess our sins, He is just enough to forgive us. Maybe we need to understand what confession means and what it entails. Confession of sin is the admission of what we did and the agreement with God that our actions or words were wrong.

If criminals are meant to confess to a judge and jury what crime they committed, shouldn’t we be doing the same to God who is much greater than any judge or jury? We should be confessing to God what sin we committed and be honest with why you did it. Remember, he can see your heart, so there’s no point omitting your true intentions. God can handle your confession and He is willing to forgive you and help you through it, as long as you are honest to Him.

I took great advice from Sister Celestial from The Master’s Voice Prophecy Blog in regards to confession and repentance. Every time I repent or confess a sin, I try to follow the instruction that God spoke through her. I will link the video here so you may go back and watch it and I highly suggest you watch her other videos. Her videos/blog have convicted me to take my relationship with Jesus more seriously.

Basically, when you first come to Christ, your are to list every sin you have committed from as far back as you remember. I had to write down every sin that I have committed as far back as when I was 7-years-old and I had to be honest and tell God why I did it. I found myself confessing sins I did as a child.

Whether it was free will or because my mom told me to, I had to confess and explain to God that I did because I wanted to obey my mother and I had no knowledge of biblical truth. An example of a sin like this, is when my mother would take me to traditional healers (witch doctors) to perform rituals. At the time, I had no idea it is a sin and that demons were apart of those rituals. I had to repent, because I still participated in it.

Please note, just because you were a toddler when you committed this sin, it does not nullify God’s judgement. You must confess all sin. Time does not cover your past sins, confession and genuine repentance does. If you have trouble remembering past sins, ask the Holy Spirit to help you to remember. I once remembered an incident in primary school where I slapped this boy in my class. I had to repent for that!

Once you confess your sin and ask for forgiveness, believe that God has forgiven you and do not keep repeating that sin to Him. Do not backslide either because that is abusing his grace and mercy. You have to crucify your flesh. You have to live a holy life and flee from sin. If someone wronged you and apologised, but the kept repeating the same sin against you, how would you feel? Probably not so great! So you probably shouldn’t do it to God then.

Confession and repentance of all sins closes the door to the enemy and leaves no room for him to accuse you in God’s presence (Zechariah 3:1). Remember, he is the accuser and he will find anything to accuse you of so that he has legal access to tormenting you.