Making Mistakes
It is helpful to remember that anyone can make mistakes. For me, this was a sin of omission. I did not take enough time to think through last week’s article to realize that I had listed Beth Moore as a great leader and then later realized she is going in a direction contrary to scripture. I did not take the time to consider my comments and may have misled others into following her. For others, it might be a sin of commission. So, what do we do when we make a mistake? What do we do when we commit a sin? 1 John 1 and 2 talks about this. Consider the following verses: “If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us. My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.” (1 John 1:8–2:2, NASB95)
Notice that this passage is written to the church! That means that John was addressing those who had already given their lives to Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. (Have you?) He told them that they could not claim to be without sin. Many that have been Christians for a long time forget that they have been made right with God, but He still is changing them from day to day into who He wants them to be. This is called sanctification and it happens every day moving believers into a closer relationship with Christ as they are made more and more like Him.
Additionally, this passage says to believers that we need to confess our sins. That means to agree with God about our sin. If you have become a believer in Jesus Christ, you have confessed your sins before, so this should be easily understood, and we should not need an example of how to do so. Some might object, “But, I thought that when Jesus forgave my sin, He forgave it all! Past, present, and future sin was forgiven when I repented from my sin and became a follower of Jesus!” Actually, that is correct. It is all forgiven, but we still need to agree with Him about the struggles and failures we experience as we walk with Him. We do this to keep the lines of communication open with Him and ensure that we do not allow the enemy to heap up shame on us that keeps us distant from God. Not Him from us, but like Adam and Eve in the garden, since we know we have sinned, we keep our distance from Him. Confession keeps those lines of communication open because when we confess, we have confidence that He hears and has forgiven.
This passage also says that we can have this same confidence in the future. Jesus does not disown us when we sin. He draws us to Himself with guilt so that we will rely on His life, death, resurrection, and promises again, just as we did when were saved. We are reminded that He has already paid for that sin so that we need not allow that sin to keep us away from Him, but like James said, “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.” (James 4:8, NASB95) So Jesus is our advocate with the Father and His with us to draw us together in our sin.
When we sin, we need to confess that sin to God. We also need to confess our sin to anyone we have sinned against, but that confession ought to be as public as our sin. If you have criticized someone unfairly, you need to confess the sin to God, and He will forgive. We also need to admit our sin to those we spoke to or in the presence of. If that person we criticized has heard it or might, we need to confess to them as well. If we have just had critical thoughts of someone, we need to confess that to God and stop there because we could cause a rift in the relationship if we inform them of something we have not communicated. Remember, “Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.” (James 5:16, NASB95)