LifePath Church
  • Home
  • Get To Know Us
    • Who We Are
    • What We Do
    • What We Value
    • What We Believe
    • Racial Justice
    • LGBTQIA+ Inclusion
    • Local Mission
    • Global Mission
    • Partnerships
  • Get Connected
    • Celebration Gathering
    • Listen Online
    • Children and Teens
    • Meal Communities
    • Triads
    • Life Seminars
    • Giving
  • Together for Good
  • Calendar
  • Latest News

Together for good

simple weekly reflections on community, spiritual formation, and the way of Jesus

The Guilty Pleasure of Confession

8/14/2020

0 Comments

 
Picture
If we claim to have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth. But if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from everything we’ve done wrong.
-1 John 1:9 

I don’t know why, but I’ve been thinking a lot about confession lately. Maybe it’s because when the ugliness of our world rears its head, the ugliness inside of me swells up too. Can you relate? In our exhaustion and frustration, we are tempted in many ways. We face what the New Testament writers described as struggles of “the flesh.” They're talking about moments when our selfishness takes over. Moments when pride, shame, self-righteousness, sexual temptation, greed, laziness, a critical spirit, and other stuff like that rises up and does some damage in us and others.

This battle is a part of life. In John’s first letter, he says that if anyone says they don’t mess up, they are liars. I’m inclined to believe John from firsthand experience. 

The early church regarded confession as the means by which God brings us back onto the path of life. Following the scriptures, they entrusted their mistakes to God, and trusted God’s lavish grace to restore and renew them daily.

Unfortunately, confession today often carries a lot of baggage because 1) we live in a culture where admitting we’re wrong is a sign of weakness and 2) confession has been forced upon people in guilt-tripping, damaging ways. 

But it doesn’t need to be like that. 

When we confess the areas that we miss the mark, we open ourselves up to the regular reminder of the grace of God available to us. The grace that tastes like honey. The grace that turned the world upside down when Jesus died unjustly but refused to take revenge on humanity. The grace that sets Christian faith apart from any other religious movement. This grace is a pleasure to experience, because grace can only be received as a gift. It cannot be grabbed or stolen out of pride or selfishness. It is only when we acknowledge that pride and selfishness often dominate our thoughts that we actually move beyond guilt and into grace.  

To simplify: When we say we’re guilty, we get the pleasure of grace.
Well there’s a paradox to think about when you lie awake at night.  Is grace a guilty pleasure? 

A few weeks ago during our few minutes of zoom prayer we have every weekday, a brother prayed a prayer of confession, humbly acknowledging how he misses the point regularly. As I prayed along, I had this incredible experience of joy…. odd, right? But his openness to confess brought out this desire in me to say, 
Yes, me too, God! I’m in need too! 

Why is admitting our weakness so countercultural? Why aren’t we doing this more often as a practice in spiritual, mental, and emotional health? Maybe confession is not a guilty pleasure at all. Guilty pleasures are things that we don’t like to admit to others, like how I binge watched two full seasons of Scream Queens with Bethany during quarantine. The joy of God’s grace intersecting our imperfect lives is not embarrassing, but exhilarating. Maybe we should be shouting it from the mountain tops. 

True confession is not the addition of, but the release of the soul-ravaging power of guilt and shame crushing our spirits. We are not made to live in guilt or be guilt-tripped. We are not made for worm theology, of calling ourselves such miserable worthless peons that we can’t possibly imagine God loving us. If we can’t imagine God loving anyone as miserable as us, we have yet to fully understand the character of God.

No, simply by God loving us, we have proof that God has determined that we are indeed worthy of his love. Therefore, living in guilt doesn’t do a thing. For more information, read the New Testament. 

But admitting that we are wrong sometimes…. admitting that we need Jesus in our lives? Somehow that is what we’re made for. That changes our outlook. It’s a rejoining of the union we were created for. 

I think we need to reclaim the power of confession, and perhaps reframe it. I’m aware that many of my friends, both Catholic and otherwise, have shared that even using the word confession triggers feelings of a faith built on feeling bad about themselves. I get that. But it’s time to allow confessional sorrow to give way to grace-filled pleasure. I can think of nothing more freeing than admitting that I want the God of grace in my life each moment that I mess up. I want the pleasure of walking forward realizing that my past mistakes do not determine my future path. I want the pleasure of remembering that the burdens I carry may be laid down as frequently as I am willing to bring them to Christ, and I want the joy of heading out on a new journey each day to love the world with reckless abandon because I literally have nothing to lose. I’ve already had my soul laid bare with all my shortcomings and been told that I’m still worth dying for.  It’s just that I forget that all the time. 

Go ahead. Confess your sin. And go ahead, receive grace. You might be amazed at how good it feels. 

Jesus, I want to delight in your grace touching my imperfect life today. I receive it. 

Peace,
Keith

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    May 2025
    April 2025
    March 2025
    February 2025
    January 2025
    December 2024
    November 2024
    October 2024
    September 2024
    August 2024
    July 2024
    June 2024
    May 2024
    April 2024
    March 2024
    February 2024
    January 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018

    RSS Feed

Lifepath Church

Copyright © 2022
Contact Us
Photo from Pascal Volk
  • Home
  • Get To Know Us
    • Who We Are
    • What We Do
    • What We Value
    • What We Believe
    • Racial Justice
    • LGBTQIA+ Inclusion
    • Local Mission
    • Global Mission
    • Partnerships
  • Get Connected
    • Celebration Gathering
    • Listen Online
    • Children and Teens
    • Meal Communities
    • Triads
    • Life Seminars
    • Giving
  • Together for Good
  • Calendar
  • Latest News