Confession

"The confession of evil works is the first beginning of good works.” ~Saint Augustine

 When was the last time we confessed our sins? I'm not talking about just saying, "and forgive me of my sins" but really thinking about all the times we sinned today.... True confession is going into detail. When we confess it helps us to not do those things again. For me actually verbalizing sins that run through everything in my life helps me to not do those things.

I taught in one of my classes today on confession. We took chalk pastels and colored our paper.. then we wrote our sins on top with another color.... If you know anything about using chalk you know it smears. So, after we wrote our sins we smeared them and blended them into our background color. Both colors were still visible, but our words were gone. Much like how the repercussions of our sins are still in our lives, but the sins are gone.

Found this on Google like most pics

Here's a list of sins... some I struggle with and commit, some I don't:

• Lust
• for people
• for things
• for love not from God (relationships and such)
• Anger
• Hate
• Gossip
• Slander
• Greed
• Stealing
• Materialism
• Not Honoring my Parents
• Laziness
• Murder
• Being Judgmental
• Pride
• Over indulging
• food
• alcohol
• Adultery
• Lying
• Not making God a priority in Life
• Idolatry
• If you have anything that you Love more than God that is Idolatry
• Being Envious
• Carrying a Grudge
• Using Foul Language
• Using the Lord's name in vein 
• Not giving to the Poor
• Not praying for others

Have I hit anything on your list because I've hit a lot of mine! How much do we sit before God and ask him for things when we are unclean? How long would it take for us to remember all the sins we have committed this week?! Maybe we should start now confessing to God EVERY sin.... This could take a while! But afterwards we get to start ANEW!!! 

Remember: Confession isn't a free pass to sin again instead we are suppose to be fleeing from sin!