As a long time pastor I have found one thing to be always true. There is no opportunity for grace without confession. In other words, how can you be forgiven or afforded grace if you never admit to doing anything wrong?
Don’t confuse grace with mercy. Mercy is something I can offer to someone without any action on their part. However, showing someone grace requires an opportunity to do so.
This is something that can be particularly challenging when dealing with a secret addiction like porn use. Many men and women never confess their issues because they fear condemnation and judgment. As a result, those unresolved confessions or secrets are left there to fester and rot building up what seems to be an inescapable burden of shame.
Here’s what these people fail to realize. If they keep their problems secret they give no room for grace to operate. Yes, if you confess your porn addiction to someone, you may find that they’d rather condemn you instead of offering you grace, but you won’t know until you try. Additionally, even if this happens you have done the right thing and are now freed from a massive amount of pent up shame because you’ve confessed and allowed God’s grace to enter the picture.
We have a section of the website called confessions. The confessions page is meant to be a safe place where you can openly talk about your struggles and come clean. Maybe you aren’t feeling “ready” to confess your addiction to your spouse, or friend, or whoever. But, you can at least start here and begin to let God’s grace operate in your life.
Confess today. The grace you want may be just around the corner. (Tweet This)
Confession Makes Room For Grace by XXXchurch.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.