Quotes & Sayings About Confession To God

The cross stands as a mystery because it is foreign to everything we exalt- self over principle, power over meekness, the quick fix over the long haul, cover-up over confession, escapism over confrontation, conform over sacrifice, feeling over commitment, legality over justice, the body over the spirit, anger over forgiveness, man over God. — Ravi Zacharias

And they got blackout drunk one night and it just happened. It was basically an accident, and he gave me the most sincere and moving confession of all time, swore to God he loved me so much and would do anything to convince me, blah blah blah, but it didn't matter, I kept thinking about it and running it through my head and just burning with it. I cried every night for weeks. Practically wore the binary off all my saddest Mp3s. — Isaac Marion

When I was seven I believed in God so I told Him I was sorry about kicking my sister and to "please not condemn me to eternal suffering in the interminable fires of Perdition for my transgressions. — Emma Rose Kraus

The death of 'the god of western theism', the destruction of the idol, is opening the way to a rediscovery of the acts of the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, the living God of the worship and confession of the Fathers of the Church, he who makes himself fully known in Jesus Christ, and who in his Word and his Spirit is present and at work throughout the whole of what he has made. — A.M. Allchin

A sinner is justified and reconciled with God the moment he truly believes in the person and atoning work of Christ. However, the evidence that he truly believed and was genuinely converted in that moment is that he goes on believing and confessing all the days of his life. This is not to say that the true believer will be immune to doubts, free from failure, or unhindered in his growth to maturity. However, it does mean that the God who began a good work in him will continue perfecting that work until the final day.7 Salvation is by grace alone through faith alone.8 However, the evidence of saving faith is a genuine and enduring confession of the lordship of Jesus Christ throughout the believer's life. — Paul David Washer

Repentance is shockingly beautiful when we see it not as "I sinned again, I need to repent," but as "I sinned against my God again, but He is calling me back so He can lavish me with His love and forgiveness. — James MacDonald

Confession and repentance might be described as the negative side of submission; this involves getting rid of everything which hinders God's control over our lives. Yielding to God might be described as the positive side ... placing ourselves totally into the hands of God. — Billy Graham

The true religion is to be posited not in the knowledge or confession of what God allegedly does or has done for our salvation, but in what we must do to become worthy of this. — Immanuel Kant

We are so unrepentant that we would rather perish than confess truthfully that we are sinners and justify God by means of confession. David justified the prophet Nathan's words: 'You are an adulterer, a murderer, and a blasphemer.' When David heard this, he was chastened and replied: 'The words are true.' He confessed his sins immediately and received forgiveness. Nathan did not write David a letter of indulgence, nor did he say to him: 'Make a pilgrimage to St. James, or have Masses read; or lie down in a hairy garment!' No, he said: 'The Lord has removed your sin. — Martin Luther

Are you perhaps one of those who worries about having committed the unpardonable sin? If so, you should face squarely what the Bible says on this subject, not what you may have heard from others. The unpardonable sin is rejecting the truth about Christ. It is rejecting, completely and finally, the witness of the Holy Spirit, which declares that Jesus Christ is the Son of God who alone can save us from our sins. Have you rejected Christ in your own life, and said in your heart that what the Bible teaches about Him is a lie? Then I tell you as solemnly and as sincerely as I know how that you are in a very dangerous position. I urge you without delay to accept the truth about Christ, and to come to humble confession and repentance and faith. It would be tragic for you to persist in your unbelief, and eventually go into eternity without hope and without God. — Billy Graham

I begin with confession not in order to feel miserable, rather to call to mind a reality I often ignore. When I acknowledge where I stand before a perfect God, it restores the true state of the universe. Confession simply establishes the proper ground rules of creatures relating to their creator. — Philip Yancey

The authority of the Scriptures does not depend on the decision of the church or the individual to validate it. To paraphrase the Westminster Confession, we receive it as the word of God because of what it is, not because of what we make of it. — Michael S. Horton

It's a beautiful religion and I wish I understood it more. No, I don't want to understand it all. It's beautiful because it's always a mystery. Sometimes I say I don't believe in God and Jesus and Mary. I'm a bad Catholic because I miss mass once in a while and I grumble when, at confession, I get a heavy penance for something I couldn't help doing. But good or bad, I am a Catholic and I'll never be anything else.
Of course, I didn't ask to be born Catholic, no more than I asked to be born American. But I'm glad it turned out that I'm both these things. — Betty Smith

Confession of sin shows us more clearly our need of mercy-and endears God's mercy more to us — Joseph Caryl

Don't harden your heart. Return to the Lord. He will revive and restore you. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Now because 18 months ago the first dawn, 3 months ago broad daylight but a very few days ago the full sun of the most highly remarkable spectacle has risen - nothing holds me back. I can give myself up to the sacred frenzy, I can have the insolence to make a full confession to mortal men that I have stolen the golden vessel of the Egyptians to make from them a tabernacle for my God far from the confines of the land of Egypt. If you forgive me I shall rejoice; if you are angry, I shall bear it; I am indeed casting the die and writing the book, either for my contemporaries or for posterity to read, it matters not which: let the book await its reader for a hundred years; God himself has waited six thousand years for his work to be seen. — Johannes Kepler

When the mind, for want of being sufficiently reduced by recollection at our first engaging in devotion, has contracted certain bad habits of wandering and dissipation, they are difficult to overcome, and commonly draw us, even against our wills, to the things of the earth.
I believe one remedy for this is to confess our faults, and to humble ourselves before God. I do not advise you to use multiplicity of words in prayer: many words and long discourses being often the occasions of wandering. Hold yourself in prayer before God, like a dumb or paralytic beggar at a rich man's gate. Let it be your business to keep your mind in the presence of the Lord. If it sometimes wander and withdraw itself from Him, do not much disquiet yourself for that: trouble and disquiet serve rather to distract the mind than to re-collect it: the will must bring it back in tranquility. If you persevere in this manner, God will have pity on you. — Brother Lawrence

No one can be saved, and attain eternal joy, without all of the following: (1) a morally honest acceptance of the demands of virtue, (2) a serious effort to practice it, (3) an intellectually honest confession of failure, (4) repentance, and (5) at least an implicit faith and hope in God as Savior. — Peter Kreeft

When you pretend you don't feel hurt or angry or devastated, you're not fooling God. Be honest! Don't misunderstand; I am not encouraging you to be angry at God or to blame him. He deserves no blame. Rather, I am encouraging you to honestly confess to God your feelings of hurt, resentment, and anger. Often we look at suffering from our perspective and forget that God sees from another vantage point. — Randy Alcorn

Learn in confession to be honest with God. Do not give fair names to foul sins; call them what you will, they will smell no sweeter. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Did ye not mean to go to Confession yourself?" Jamie asked, stopping near the church's main door. There was a priest in the confessional; two or three people stood a discreet distance away from the carved wooden stall, out of earshot, waiting. "It'll bide," Ian said, with a shrug. "If ye're goin' to hell, I might as well go, too. God knows, ye'll never manage alone." Jamie — Diana Gabaldon

You have made us to be free,
But we crave the cheap comforts of our chains.
You have made us to serve others,
But we have eyes only for ourselves.
You have made us to love,
But we are inflamed with lust.
You provide, that we may be generous,
But we greedily hoard as if your well will run dry.
You forgive time and again,
But we hold fast to the sins of others.
You offer light for our path,
But we insist on making our own way.
You are the God who saves.
Lord, save us from ourselves. In your great mercy, restore and heal us, and grant us your peace. — Ecclesia Catholica

We have to hear again and again who God is for us and what God has done on our behalf. We must free each other from bondage through our confession and forgiveness. — Nadia Bolz-Weber

We could paraphrase "repent and believe" with "close your ears and listen." Obedience has both a stop and start to it. We turn our backs to the old voices and offer our attention to Jesus' voice.

We desire for God's voice to crescendo in our lives, with the competing voices fading away. This means that we must ruthlessly silence the calls of other masters. We confess our auditory rebellions to others, since somehow moving the jaw in confession seems to unplug our ears. — Adam S. McHugh

Resolved, never to count that a prayer, nor to let that pass as a prayer, nor that as a petition of a prayer, which is so made, that I cannot hope that God will answer it; nor that as a confession, which I cannot hope God will accept. — Jonathan Edwards

According to Maximus the Confessor in "One Hundred Chapters of Love", the key to directing and increasing one's desire for God is the acquisition of the virtues-which, you'll recall, we described above as noncognitive "dispositions" acquired through practices. So how does one acquire such virtues, such dispositions of desire? Through participation in concrete Christian practices like confession. — James K.A. Smith

[ ... ]we must ask ourselves whether we have not often been deceiving ourselves with our confession of sin to God, whether we have not rather been confessing our sins to ourselves and also granting ourselves absolution. And is not the reason perhaps for our countless relapses and the feebleness of our Christian obedience to be found precisely in the fact that we are living on self-forgiveness and not a real forgiveness. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

She didn't understand, I hope to God she never understands what I do, what I am. To be dammed by the darkness that lives inside me.
To be saved by her love.
No more half-truths. No more omissions. — Linnea Sinclair

God, I thank thee, I am not as the rest of men, or even as this publican. It is in that which is just cause for thanksgiving, it is in the very thanksgiving which we render to God, it may be in the very confession that God has done it all, that self finds its cause of complacency. Yes, even when in the temple the language of penitence and trust in God's mercy alone is heard, the Pharisee may take up the note of praise, and in thanking God be congratulating himself. — Andrew Murray

Love? Yes, God loves us. But his love is passionate and seeks faithful, committed love in return. God does not want tame pets to fondle and feed; he wants mature, free people who will respond to him in authentic individuality. For that to happen there must be honesty and truth. The self must be toppled from its pedestal. There must be pure hearts and clear intelligence, confession of sin and commitment in faith. — Eugene H. Peterson

Those who tread these paths should be informed of a matter respecting their confession in which they are apt to err. When they begin to give an account of their sins, instead of the regret and contrition they had been accustomed to feel, they find that love and tranquility sweetly pervade and take possession of their souls: now those who are not properly instructed are desirous of withdrawing from this sensation to form an act of contrition, because they have heard, and with truth, that it is requisite: but they are not aware that they lose thereby the genuine contrition, which is this Intuitive Love, infinitely surpassing any effect produced by self-exertion ... Be not then troubled about other things when God acts so excellently in you and for you. — Jeanne Marie Bouvier De La Motte Guyon

Everything teaches, whether you intend it to or not. The songs teach people doctrine and proper affections for God. Your prayers (or lack of them) teach people how to pray themselves. The kinds of prayers you pray (or don't pray) teach people about the important differences between prayers of adoration, confession, thanksgiving, and supplication. The way you administer the ordinances teaches people about their meaning, and even the very meaning of the Gospel. Your preaching teaches people how to study and use the Bible appropriately. Everything from the call to worship to the benediction counts as teaching. Teaching is everything. — Mark Dever

Why is it that it is often easier for us to confess our sins to God than to a brother? God is holy and sinless, He is a just judge of evil and the enemy of all disobedience. But a brother is sinful as we are. He knows from his own experience the dark night of secret sin. Why should we not find it easier to go to a brother than to the holy God? But if we do, we must ask ourselves whether we have not often been deceiving ourselves with our confession of sin to God, whether we have not rather been confessing our sins to ourselves and also granting ourselves absolution ... Who can give us the certainty that, in the confession and the forgiveness of our sins, we are not dealing with ourselves but with the living God? God gives us this certainty through our brother. Our brother breaks the circle of self-deception. A man who confesses his sins in the presence of a brother knows that he is no longer alone with himself; he experiences the presence of God in the reality of the other person. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Repentance was never yet produced in any man's heart apart from the grace of God. As soon may you expect the leopard to regret the blood with which its fangs are moistened, - as soon might you expect the lion of the wood to abjure his cruel tyranny over the feeble beasts of the plain, as expect the sinner to make any confession, or offer any repentance that shall be accepted of God, unless grace shall first renew the heart. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Sacrifice, discipline and prayer are essential. We gain strength through God's word. We receive grace from the sacrament. And when we fumble due to sin - and it's gonna happen - confession puts us back on the field. — Lou Holtz

Lent is a time for discipline, for confession, for honesty, not because God is mean or fault- finding or finger-pointing but because he wants us to know the joy of being cleaned out, ready for all the good things he now has in store. — N. T. Wright

As Francesco Datini of Prato did a century before, Pacioli advises merchants to incorporate explicit signs of Christianity into their books as a way of legitimising their profit-seeking activities. The use of double entry itself was like the Catholic confession: if a merchant confessed - or accounted for - all his world activities before God, then perhaps his sins would be absolved. These Christian flourishes that Pacioli recommends merchants include in their books are therefore no mere ornaments. — Jane Gleeson-White

No spiritual exercise is such a blending of complexity and simplicity. It is the simplest form of speech that infant lips can try, yet the sublimest strains that reach the Majesty on high. It is as appropriate to the aged philosopher as to the little child. It is the ejaculation of a moment and the attitude of a lifetime. It is the expression of the rest of faith and of the fight of faith. It is an agony and an ecstasy. It is submissive and yet importunate. In the one moment it lays hold of God and binds the devil. It can be focused on a single objective and it can roam the world. It can be abject confession and rapt adoration. — John F. MacArthur Jr.

The price that has to be paid for finding truly personal life is a very high one. It is a price in terms of the acceptance of responsibility. And the awareness of responsibility inevitably leads either to despair or to confession and grace ... What is needed is a new outlook, a personal revolution, a miracle.. It comes by grace, through the encounter with God, through dialogue with him. — Paul Tournier

It [spiritual authority and leadership] is not won by promotion, but my many prayers and tears. It is attained by confession of sin, and much heart-searching and humbling before God; by self-surrender, a courageous sacrifice of every idol, a bold uncomplaining embrace of the cross, and by eternally looking unto Jesus crucified. It is not gained by seeking great things for ourselves, but like Paul, by counting those things that are gain to us as loss for Christ. This is a great price, but it must be paid by the leader whose power is recognized and felt in heaven, on earth, and in hell. — Samuel Brengle

A person who knew he could come to God with nothing more than a cupful of flour and a confession of his sin and still receive forgiveness was learning something fundamental about the grace of God . . . even the most powerful in the land knew that God was not impressed by the most lavish sacrifices. . . .49 — Timothy J. Keller

True repentance begins with KNOWLEDGE of sin. It goes on to work SORROW for sin. It leads to CONFESSION of sin before God. It shows itself before a person by a thorough BREAKING OFF from sin. It results in producing a DEEP HATRED for all sin. — J.C. Ryle

we are to 'hunger and thirst for righteousness'. For what is the use of confessing and lamenting our sin, of acknowledging the truth about ourselves to both God and men, if we leave it there? Confession of sin must lead to hunger for righteousness. — John R.W. Stott

Prayer is not designed for the furnishing of God with the knowledge of what we need, but it is designed as a confession to him of our sense of need. — Arthur W. Pink

Love can't cover over the sins we cover up ... If you want God and others to cover over your sin, stop covering it up. — Mark Buchanan

The devil does not bring sinners to hell with their eyes open: he first blinds them with the malice of their own sins. Before we fall into sin, the enemy labours to blind us, that we may not see the evil we do and the ruin we bring upon ourselves by offending God. After we commit sin, he seeks to make us dumb, that, through shame, we may conceal our guilt in confession. — Alphonsus Liguori

He had never missed God or the hope of heaven, but he had dearly wanted confession to rest his mind, Communion to let him touch something beyond Father Krone's dry, shaky hand, and holy water to taste like starlight. — Peter S. Beagle

I hope I never need to believe in God. It would be an awful confession of failure. — Kenneth Tynan

To me it seemed that the teaching of God's Word was unmistakably clear: 'Owe no man anything.' To borrow money implied to my mind a contradiction of Scripture
a confession that God had withheld some good thing, and determination to get for ourselves what He had not given. — James Hudson Taylor

Confession is the act of inviting God to walk the acreage of our hearts. "There is a rock of greed over here, Father. I can't budge it. And that tree of guilt near the fence? Its roots are long and deep. And may I show you some dry soil, too crusty for seed?" God's seed grows better if the soil of the heart is cleared. — Max Lucado

Prayer is not appointed for the furnishing of God with the knowledge of what we need, but it is designed as a confession to Him of our sense of the need. In this, as in everything, God's thoughts are not as ours. God requires that His gifts should be sought for. He designs to be honoured by our asking, just as He is to be thanked by us after He has bestowed His blessing. — Arthur W. Pink

I think," said Dominique firmly, "that he is the most revolting person I've ever met." "Oh, now, really?" "Do you care for that sort of unbridled arrogance? I don't know what one could say for him, unless it's that he's terribly good-looking, if that matters." "Good-looking? Are you being funny, Dominique?" Kiki Holcombe saw Dominique being stupidly puzzled for once. And Dominique realized that what she saw in his face, what made it the face of a god to her, was not seen by others; that it could leave them indifferent; that what she had thought to be the most obvious, inconsequential remark was, instead, a confession of something within her, some quality not shared by others. — Ayn Rand

How often the priest had heard the same confession
Man was so limited: he hadn't even the ingenuity to invent a new vice: the animals knew as much. It was for this world that Christ had died: the more evil you saw and heard about you, the greater the glory lay around the death; it was too easy to die for what was good or beautiful, for home or children or civilization
it needed a God to die for the half-hearted and the corrupt. — Graham Greene

Modern Christians, especially those in the Western world, have generally been found wanting in the area of holiness of body. Gluttony and laziness, for example, were regarded by earlier Christians as sin. Today we may look on these as weaknesses of the will but certainly not sin. We even joke about our overeating and other indulgences instead of crying out to God in confession and repentance. — Jerry Bridges

God does not forgive you based on the quality of your confession or your resolve to be a better person. But you keep thinking otherwise. Your standard is what you would do to someone like yourself, and chances are that you would not let the incident pass quickly. God, however, forgives, for his own name's sake. "I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more" (Isa. 43:25). — Edward T. Welch

If Christians realized that God Himself in the person of the Holy Spirit really dwells within our bodies, we would be far more careful about what we eat, drink, look at, or read. No wonder Paul said, "I beat my body and make it my slave" [1 Corinthians 9:27 NIV]. This should drive us to our knees in confession. — Billy Graham

Confession is the God-given remedy for self-deception and self-indulgence. When we confess our sins before a brother-Christian, we are mortifying the pride of the flesh and delivering it up to shame and death through Christ. Then through the word of absolution we rise as new men, utterly dependent on the mercy of God. Confession is thus a genuine part of the life of the saints, and one of the gifts of grace. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Children of God should not make a general confession by acknowledging their innumerable sins in a vague manner, because such confession does not provide conscience opportunity to do its perfect work. They ought to allow the Holy Spirit through their conscience to point out their sins one by one. Christians must accept its reproach and be willing, according to the mind of the Spirit, to eliminate everything which is contrary to God. — Watchman Nee

And if we fail at marriage, we are lucky we don't have to fail with the force of our whole life. I would like there to be an eighth sacrament: the sacrament of divorce. Like Communion, it is a slim white wafer on the tongue. Like confession, it is forgiveness. Forgiveness is important not so much because we've done wrong as because we feel we need to be forgiven. Family, friends, God, whoever loves us forgives us, takes us in again. They are thrilled by our life, our possibilities, our second chances. They weep with gladness that we did not have to die. ( — Ann Patchett

So that I could better remember these necessary attributes, I have put them in acrostic form as a memory tool:
P - praise
R - repentance which is acknowledged through confession
A - appreciation or thanksgiving
Y - yielding to God's Will
E - entreaty or supplication
R - renewal of fellowship with God — Teresa Hampton

When you see a condemned man on his way to the gallows, it moves you to pity. If you could do something to free him, you would do it. Well, brothers and sisters, when I see a person in mortal sin, I see someone drawing nearer with every step to the gallows of hell. And seeing him in this unhappy state, I happen to know the way to free him: that he be converted to God, ask God's pardon, and make a good confession. Woe betide me if he does not. — Anthony Mary Claret

Naturalism is a picture of the whole of reality that cannot, according to its own intrinsic premises, address the being of the whole; it is a metaphysics of the rejection of metaphysics, a transcendental certainty of the impossibility of transcendental truth, and so requires an act of pure credence logically immune to any verification (after all, if there is a God he can presumably reveal himself to seeking minds, but if there is not then there can be no "natural" confirmation of the fact). Thus naturalism must forever remain a pure assertion, a pure conviction, a confession of blind assurance in an inaccessible beyond; and that beyond, more paradoxically still, is the beyond of no beyond. — David Bentley Hart

Christ became our Brother in order to help us. Through him our brother has become Christ for us in the power and authority of the commission Christ has given him. Our brother stands before us the sign of the truth and the grace of God. He has been given to us to help us. He hears the confession of our sins in Christ's stead and he forgives our sins in Christ's name. He keeps the secret of our confession as God keeps it. When I go to my brother to confess, I am going to God. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The purpose of confessing our sins is not to render us miserable by simply reminding us what great sinners we are. It is to remind us of what a great Savior we have. We confess that "there is no health in us" in order that our hearts may be drawn afresh to the Great Physician of our souls, who has provided for our desperate need for cleansing in the gospel. For that reason, we always follow our prayer of confession with a scriptural assurance of pardon: God's authoritative declaration of the forgiveness of each and every one of the sins of his people in Jesus Christ. This is our only hope in life and death. These assurances, too, we have endeavored to make specific, providing gospel encouragement tailored to our particular failings and pointing us afresh to the new life that is ours in Christ. — Barbara R. Duguid

Anyone who has fallen into fornication, adultery or any other such bodily impurity, should desist from this revolting filth and cleanse himself through confession, tears, fasting and the like. For God judges unrepentant fornicators and adulterers. He condemns them, dismisses them and consigns them to hell, unquenchable fire and other never-ending punishments, saying, 'Let the impure and accursed be taken away, lest they see and enjoy the glory of the Lord' (cf. Isa. 26:10 LXX). — Gregory Palamas

She wanted to confess and be forgiven. She wanted her soul to be clean, but it was impossible. To be forgiven, she would have to repent. Repent, as in resolve not to sin again. Fred prayed every day that God would give her strength to want to repent, but she never felt like she'd received that strength. — Erin O'Riordan

Confession of sins is not meritorious: to confess sins as a way of placing God in your debt is not dealing with sin; it is committing another sin. The context of all confession must be the free grace of justification. — Douglas Wilson

There is no true prayer without confession. As long as we have unconfessed sin in our soul, we are not going to have power with God in prayer. He says if we regard iniquity in our hearts, He will not hear us, much less answer. As long as we are living in any known sin, we have no power in prayer. God is not going to hear it. — Dwight L. Moody

In my view, it is inappropriate for us to refer to our confession as the Reformed Faith. The reformed churches did not (and do not) believe that they were confessing the Reformed Faith, but that they were confessing the "undoubted Christian Faith" in their confession and catechisms. There is a reason that this wing of the reformation called itself "Reformed." Unlike the Anabaptists, Reformed churches understood themselves as a continuing branch of the catholic church. At the same time, the Reformed wanted to reform everything "according to the Word of God." Not only our doctrine, but our worship and life must be determined by Scripture and not by human whim or creativity. — Michael S. Horton

As we Christians strive to be more influenced by God's kingdom than by this world, we're reminded we will sometimes slip, but 'if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness' (1 John 1:9). — Van Harden

God will help us - said the holy man. - But first let us understand the reason for these pains. I suggest Your Majesty confesses now, for confession makes men face up to their problems, and liberates much guilt. — Paulo Coelho

Finally, it is wrong to say that "nothing" is more basic to the identity of the church than suffering. Nothing is more basic to the identity of the institutional church than the preaching of the gospel, the correct administration of the sacraments, and the worship of God in Spirit and in truth (Westminster Confession of Faith, 25.4). Nothing is more basic to the identity of the individual Christian than faith, hope, obedience, and love, the fruit of the Spirit (cf. 1 Cor. 13:4-13; Gal. 5:22-24; 1 John 2:3; 3:10, 24; 4:7-21; 5:1-3). — Keith A. Mathison

Confession is a difficult Discipline for us because we all too often view the believing community as a fellowship of saints before we see it as a fellowship of sinners. We feel that everyone else has advanced so far into holiness that we are isolated and alone in our sin. We cannot bear to reveal our failures and shortcomings to others. We imagine that we are the only ones who have not stepped onto the high road to heaven. Therefore, we hide ourselves from one another and live in veiled lies and hypocrisy.
But if we know that the people of God are first a fellowship of sinners, we are freed to hear the unconditional call of God's love and to confess our needs openly before our brothers and sisters. We know we are not alone in our sin. The fear and pride that cling to us like barnacles cling to others also. We are sinners together. In acts of mutual confession we release the power that heals. Our humanity is no longer denied, but transformed. — Richard J. Foster

To all my nonbelieving, sort-of-believing, and used-to-be-believing friends: I feel like I should begin with a confession. I am sorry that so often the biggest obstacle to God has been Christians. — Shane Claiborne

Many act as if they feel their work is over when they lead lost souls to Christ and open confession of Him. This is an important step, but only the first step. When their souls are saved then the important work of saving, preserving and utilizing life begins. "Grow in grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour" (2 Peter 3:18) is God's spiritual order at the doorway of the new life. — L. R. Scarborough

When we confess a sin, we are not asking that God or others see it from our point of view, from the vantage point of our intentions or our motives. Instead, we use God's point of view. We submit to the righteous hand of God. We consent that the Bible is true and that the law of God condemns us. And this either drives us into mad depression or into the open arms of our Savior, Jesus Christ. The implications are far-reaching. Confession of sin is meant to drive us to Christ, for our good and for his glory. — Rosaria Champagne Butterfield

No other religion has a God who serves His people rather than demanding service of them. This is why for Martin Luther justification was the chief article of the faith. Christ turned over our human expectations so that His glorious grace might be our faith and confession. God destroys our acquisitive holiness by giving us a perfect ransom that we cannot acquire. This ransom frees us from constantly seeking to put ourselves on top. We are free to be last, because Christ exalts us. — Scott Murray

Confession is something we will never outgrow, even if we become the saints God made us to be. Pope John Paul II and Mother Teresa of Calcutta were revered even during their lifetime; but both made frequent use of the Sacrament of Reconciliation. — Donald Wuerl

When God calls us to confession, it's not just about sharing details for the purpose of information transference. To better understand what God has called us to, it is important to know the difference between transparency and vulnerability. Transparency is sharing the intimate details of your life with another. Vulnerability is going beyond transparency to invite others into the details of your life and asking them to help you. — Aaron Stern

Prayer, meditation, and confession actually have the power to rewire the brain in a way that can make us less self-referential and more aware of how God sees us. But these impediments to sin may not come easily. — John Ortberg

The alternative connection to what is ultimate is, of course, revelation. In this view, it is not the human being reaching up to seize the meaning of life, or gazing into itself for that meaning, but God reaching down to explain life's meaning. In this understanding, there can be no speaking of God, no speaking of meaning, before his speaking to us is heard. This way was treated rudely by the Enlightenment luminaries because it both limited human freedom in shaping the meaning of reality and resorted to what was miraculous in the way revelation has been given. And it has not been treated any more kindly by the postmoderns for whom its grand, overarching Story is anathema and who do not believe that they can escape their own subjectivity. But this is the Christian confession. — John Piper

Saturday, May 22d.---It is now Saturday night, and I must prepare for the holy Sabbath. My Bible and Confession of Faith are my traveling companions, and precious friends have they been to me. I bless God for that glorious summary of Christian doctrine contained in our noble standards. It has cheered my soul in many a dark hour, and sustained me in many a desponding moment. I love to read it, and ponder carefully each proof text as I pass along. — James Henley Thornwell

I wasn't ready for the guilt of being a parent. I was raised Catholic, so guilt is a familiar friend. Guilt is as much a part of the Catholic culture as is rooting for Notre Dame. I grew up with a "God is watching you, so you better not make him mad" mentality. I felt guilty for feeling good, for feeling bad, and for feeling nothing. Attending Confession was supposed to alleviate some of the guilt, but I always ended up feeling guilty for not telling the priest everything I felt guilty about, so I stopped going to Confession. Then I felt guilty that I stopped going to Confession. That's a lot of guilt. Just when I thought that nothing could top "Catholic Guilt," I became acquainted with "Parental Guilt," which totally puts "Catholic Guilt" to shame. Sorry, Catholic Guilt. Now I feel guilty for shaming you. — Jim Gaffigan

The person who is a lost sinner has a problem with sin. That is, he is under God's wrath and curse, at alienation with God, an enemy of truth and righteousness. His relationship with God is warfare! And until one bows down to God in humble confession and commits himself in faith to Jesus Christ, he will never be reconciled to God. That's the essence of sin: rebellion against the living God. The saved sinner, on the other hand, struggles with sins (plural). He now walks with Christ, but by the same faith seeks grace to overcome remaining habits and failures as the Spirit works to conform him to the image of Christ. What does this mean in practice? I do not spend time talking with a non-Christian about his sins. That's not his problem. His problem is his sin: his broken relationship with God. — Rosaria Champagne Butterfield

Confession is an act of honesty and courage - an act of entrusting ourselves, beyond sin, to the mercy of a loving and forgiving God. — Pope John Paul II

An enormous emotion beat on him; it was like something trying to get in, the pressure of gigantic wings against the glass. Dona nobis pacem. He withstood it, with all the bitter force of the school bench, the cement playground, the St. Pancras waiting room, Dallow's and Judy's secret lust, and the cold and unhappy moment on the pier. If the glass broke, if the beast
whatever it was
got in, God knows what it would do. He had a sense of huge havoc
the confession, the penance, and the sacrament
an awful distraction, and he drove blind into the rain. — Graham Greene

Prayer is either a sheer illusion or a personal contact between embryonic, incomplete persons (ourselves) and the utterly concrete Person. Prayer in the sense of petition, asking for things, is a small part of it; confession and penitence are its threshold, adoration its sanctuary, the presence and vision and enjoyment of God its bread and wine. In it God shows Himself to us. That He answers prayers is a corollary - not necessarily the most important one - from that revelation. What He does is learned from what He is. — C.S. Lewis

Yet before I answer, I should like my readers again to be warned that this cavil is not hurled against me but against the Holy Spirit, who surely put this confession in the mouth of the holy man Job, "As it pleased God, so was it done" [Job 1:21, cf. Vg.]. When he had been robbed by thieves, in their unjust acts and evil-doing toward him he recognized God's just scourge. What does Scripture say elsewhere? Eli's sons did not obey their father because God willed to slay them [I Sam. 2:25]. Another — John Calvin

In confession occurs the breakthrough of the Cross. The root of all sin is pride, superbia. I want to be my own law, I have a right to my self, my hatred and my desires, my life and my death. The mind and flesh of man are set on fire by pride; for it is precisely in his wickedness that man wants to be as God. Confession in the presence of a brother is the profoundest kind of humiliation. It hurts, it cuts a man down, it is a dreadful blow to pride ... In the deep mental and physical pain of humiliation before a brother - which means, before God - we experience the Cross of Jesus as our rescue and salvation. The old man dies, but it is God who has conquered him. Now we share in the resurrection of Christ and eternal life. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

John's baptism ... was a radical act of individual commitment to belong to the true people of God, based on personal confession and repentance ... This is one of the main reasons that I do not believe in baptizing infants, who cannot make this personal commitment or confession or repentance. John's baptism was an assault on the very assumptions that give rise to much infant baptism. — John Piper

God is near at hand when you do approach Him in prayer. Oh, comforting truth! A God at hand to hear the softest breath of prayer-to listen to every confession of sin-to every cry of need-to every utterance of sorrow-to every wail of woe-to every appeal for counsel, strength, and support. Arise, O my soul! and give yourself to prayer; for God is near at hand to hear and answer you. — Octavius Winslow

People would make a much fuller confession to Satan than to God. — Chuck Palahniuk

The church is never more in danger than when it sees itself simply as the solution-bearer and forgets that every day it too must say, "Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner," and allow that confession to work its way into genuine humility even as it stands boldly before the world and its crazy empires. In particular, it is a problem if and when a "Christian" empire seeks to impose its will dualistically on the world by labeling other parts of the world "evil" while seeing itself as the avenging army of God. That is more or less exactly what Jesus found in the Israel of his day. The cross was and remains a call to a different vocation, a new way of dealing with evil and ultimately a new vision of God. — N. T. Wright

Forgiveness is always free. But that doesn't mean that confession is always easy. Sometimes it is hard. Incredibly hard. It is painful to admit our sins and entrust ourselves to God's care. — Erwin W. Lutzer

Then how quickly we recognized the fact that we could not be buried by baptism in the name of the Father, and in the name of the Holy Ghost, because it stood for nothing, as they never died, and were never resurrected. So if you desire to witness a public confession of a clean conscience toward God and man, and faith in the divinity of Jesus Christ, you will be baptized by single immersion, signifying the death, burial, and resurrection; being baptized in the name of Jesus, into the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; they are one when in Christ you become one with all. — Charles Clanton

Protestants at one time were confident that their free form of confession was a vast improvement upon Catholic private confession to a priest because it is voluntary, demystified, and not routinized. But amid the acids of modernity it has volunteered itself right out of existence. Demystification has dwindled into desacralization. The escape from routinization has become a convenient cover for the demise of repentance. The postmodern pastor is trying to learn anew to listen to the deeper range of feelings of others, without forgetfulness of the Word of God. — Thomas C. Oden

Hippolytus: Do you believe in God?
Priest: (Looks at him.)
Hippolytus: I know what I am. And always will be. But you. You sin knowing you'll confess. Then you're forgiven. And then you start all over again.
How do you dare mock a God so powerful? Unless you don't really believe.
Priest: This is your confession, not mine.
Hippolytus: Then why are you on your knees? God certainly is merciful. If I were him I'd despise you. I'd wipe you off the face of the earth for your dishonesty.
Priest: You're not God.
Hippolytus: No. A prince. God on earth. But not God. Fortunate for all concerned. I'd not allow you to sin knowing you'd confess and get away with it.
Priest: Heaven would be empty.
Hippolytus: A kingdom of honest men, honestly sinning. And death for those who try to cover their arse. — Sarah Kane

At the sessions after I was indicted for an upholder and maintainer of unlawful assemblies and conventicles, and for not conforming to the national worship of the church of England; and after some conference there with the justices, they taking my plain dealing with them for a confession, as they termed it, of the indictment, did sentence me to a perpetual banishment, because I refused to conform. So being again delivered up to the jailer's hands, I was had home to prison, and there have lain now complete twelve years, waiting to see what God would suffer these men to do with me. — John Bunyan

We disallow papistical doctrines of free will, of works of supererogation, of merits, of the necessity of auricular confession, and satisfaction to God-wards. — Robert Ferrar

His grace is cheapened when you think that He has only forgiven you of your sins up to the time you got saved, and after that point, you have to depend on your confession of sins to be forgiven. God's forgiveness is not given in installments. — Joseph Prince