Confession

Today's Upper Room devotion struck me as a very powerful message this morning. The devotion was about the need for us to confess our sins. And the writer of the devotion wrote it from prison. He said he began his relationship with God six days after being arrested. He then knew he had to confess to his crime and he received a life sentence with his confession.
This man knew the outcome of his confession would be life in prison here on this earth, and yet he knew he had to do it. It is amazing to me that we have such a difficult time confessing our sins and mistakes. We want to pretend like we never do anything wrong. We somehow keep alive this illusion that people think we are perfect. Or maybe we fear judgement from others instead of forgiveness when we confess. Whatever the case may be, I know confession and forgiveness are areas most of us can work on in our lives.
In the end, I believe when we face confession we are not facing life in prison. Instead we are faced with freedom from sin when we confess. When we confess our sins God is faithful and just and will forgive us of all unrighteousness. God wants to set us free through confession to one another and to God. I believe from the devotion that this man is truly free even though he continues to serve his time in prison.

P.S. Helen and I head to Annual Conference tomorrow morning in Ames. This is the annual gathering of pastors and laity from the Iowa Conference to discuss the finances, structure and policies of the Iowa United Methodists. I am hoping to blog each day something from the conference to let you know about what is going on. If you have specific questions about conference please comment them to me or email me and I will try to answer them.