No Condemnation

Like many, I "accepted Christ" as a young child in Sunday school.

Did I do it just because everyone else was doing it? Or to please my teacher? Or despite a lack of understanding?

YES!

And yet, I was saved at a young age. How do I know this? Because salvation isn't for people who are pure or intelligent. It's for the people who most definitely do not deserve it.

I skated along on the Christian life until I was 19, when the Holy Spirit convinced me to confess my most horrible awful disgusting sin to a mentor. I have never, ever felt so wretched. Yet the next day I was suddenly free, and I have been since.

Though I had been saved from my sin before, I was still choosing to live in sin - so I hadn't been free.

Why did confession have such an impact? After all, I had confessed the same sin to God hundreds of times. I had prayed for strength to stop. I had cried out my sorrow and resolved not to do it anymore.

I think a huge part of the answer is this: God wanted to do a work in me, and he chose to use human confession to another human.

But the other part of the answer is the reason I hadn't been able to stop prior. I didn't feel a personal connection with God; I did with my mentor. When I confessed to my mentor and experienced that wretched realization that I was the dirtiest person on the planet, I was really confessing to God incarnate. It's the difference between confessing to an invisible or a physical being.

And when I say God incarnate, I mean it, and I'm not being sacrilegious. Jesus was God's son, God incarnate. And when we become his children, his Spirit lives in us too - therefore, we are God incarnate, God in the flesh. That's what priests were in the Old Testament; a picture of God to the people. That's why people confess to priests. And if we are all God incarnate, then we are all priests.

And this is why confession to a godly human, like my mentor, was so essential. I had never before realized the weight of my sin because I'd never experienced God as a person. When I saw God as a person and told her my most secret sin, she forgave me and loved me. That was the first time I realized what it meant to be forgiven and loved.

That's why I confess on this blog, too. It keeps me honest and humble. Plus, I've always been passionate about the power of confession, and I want to spread the word. You might think that my serial confessions shame me. On the contrary, after each blog post I enjoy knowing there's one less secret between me and my friends - and they still love me! Confession doesn't alienate people; it brings them together.

I can't confess everything here, of course. I will do my best not to confess anything that involves talking about someone else's sin. Just because I feel free to confess doesn't mean I may force others to.

Now that I experience the freedom, I have one message for everyone: Find a "priest." Confess. If they have God living in them, you will experience love and forgiveness. No need for Hail Marys or rosaries.

Romans 8 is probably the most helpful biblical resource on this topic. "There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus...For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 8:1, 38-39.

I think it's time for you to experience that love.