Confession and Fellowship
One of my good friends gave me a chapter out of the book Life Together. I don’t know who the book is by, but the chapter she gave me is entitled Confession and Communion. One of the first quotes that caught my eye was the following:
The sin concealed separated him from the fellowship, made all his apparent fellowship a sham; the sin confessed has helped him to find true fellowship with the brethren in Jesus Christ.
I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the fellowship I have with my brothers and sisters in Christ. And I am ashamed to say that more often than not, that fellowship has not been entirely real. It’s so easy to conceal sin or to attempt to deal with it by ourselves. I’ve fallen into that trap too often. And yet, I forget what true fellowship is like. I forget the beauty of being humbled before your Christian brothers and sisters by confessing your downfalls, your weaknesses, your sins… it’s hard. As this chapter says…
Confession in the presence of a brother is the profoundest kind of humiliation. It hurts, it cuts a man down, it is a dreadful blow to pride.
Jesus suffered the worst form of humiliation. “It was none other than Jesus Christ himself who suffered the scandalous, public death of a sinner in our stead. He was not ashamed to be crucified for us as an evildoer.” It is in this confession, this humiliation, this letting go of our pride that we find new life. This new life brings certainty of forgiveness…
Having said that, one of the points in this chapter is that confession can and should be made to our brothers and sisters, not only to God (I need to be careful in how I word this - I’m in no way saying that our brothers and sisters can forgive sins, but that it provides fellowship with them). It is so often for us to just confess our sins to God and keep them hidden from the world around us.
“…we must ask ourselves whether we have not often been deceiving ourselves with our confession of sin to God, whether we have not rather been confessing our sins to ourselves and also granting ourselves absolution.”
It’s easy to just “self-forgive.” Take joy in confession and in knowing that God is a God of forgiveness. But also take joy in the fact that God has given us brothers and sisters in Christ to share in confession and true fellowship.
Published on 14 Feb 2008 at 1:50 pm.
3 Comments.
Filed under Quotes/Readings, Real Life Issues.
It’s by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Philip. What a great book. I’m glad you’re getting a taste of it. A good reminder to me to pull that one off my shelf.
Christiana Fitzpatrick on 14 Feb 2008 at 2:50 pm.
we read it in youth ministry and thought it pertained to jess, you, and myself so much in light of recent events and im glad jess shared it with you. it is powerful and it was my favorite chapter in the whole book :)
Olivia Perry on 14 Feb 2008 at 4:13 pm.
thanks for returning it so very promptly… now it’s my turn to blog about it ;) Haha.
Jess G. on 14 Feb 2008 at 10:45 pm.