Confession

And they stood up in their place and read from the Book of the Law of the Lord their God for one-fourth of the day; and for another fourth they confessed and worshipped the Lord their God. – Nehemiah 9.3

These folks had some kind of attitude of worship, didn’t they? Day after day they listened to the word of God and starting getting things sorted. God it said and as they learned about it they obeyed.

But as they heard the word of God day after day they realised how far short they had fallen. They knew their only recourse was to put out their hearts to God and confess and repent of their sins.

So they read from the Book for one fourth of the day and they confessed their sins another fourth of the day.

I am challenged by this because I don’t know that I have ever taken confession of my sins that seriously. When we read that if we ‘confess our sins Christ is faithful and just to forgive our sins’ it is easy to think that all we have to do is say ‘I’m guilty and I’m sorry’ without any change of heart and go on our way all will be grand.

That’s not how these folks confessed. Their confession was serious and they made sure they dealt with all their sins. They confessed because they saw their sin the way God did – and that is how we must see our sin.

Unconfessed sin is nothing to be toyed with. Let’s get as serious about it as these folks were.