6.18.2009
Confession and Repentance is an interesting idea to me. Confession is verbally saying, "I've sinned" to God. "Repentance is turning from that sin and moving 180 degrees in a new direction towards Jesus. And I heard quite a bit about this when I was coming to God and making a decision to follow Him. But once I became a Christian, it was almost taboo in the circles I grew up in. "Yeah, let's talk about all the ways you've screwed up in your life so you can be clean and new in Jesus. BUT, don't talk about the ways you mess up after you accept Him and become a follower of Him!"
Seriously!? That is not at all what God planned and desired for His people. In Acts 17:28-30 "in Him we live and move and have our being," but He has called all men, "all people everywhere to repent." It's a daily action of committing our lives to Him when we confess of the things we've done and repent. When we do this our sins are wiped away, as the Bible makes note of in Acts 3:19, "Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord..."
Now our sins were payed for when Jesus gave His life as a sacrifice for us on the cross. When that price was paid, it's by God's grace (a gift we don't deserve) that we are entering into heaven when we die. But even though those sins are paid for, God wants to hear from us. He desires to know our hearts and listen to us as we turn daily from the temptations of life and draw closer to Him. Confession and Repentance doesn't end when we enter into a relationship with God, it begins there. and from that point should become an ongoing discipline to draw near to God.
There are a couple articles here and here that talk about this more.