Why Confess?

Confess: to tell or make known (as something wrong or damaging to oneself) (Merriam-Webster)

Confess: An extended hand indicating power, means, and direction. To praise, to release & to assent, to acknowledge. A covenant disposition. (Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible)

MW defines confession as revealing something – especially as an admission of guilt. But in the original Hebrew and Greek, we learn a little more about the confession that the scriptures speak of. Confession is not just making something known; it indicates acknowledgement and agreement with the truth. And even more exciting, confession that is in agreement with the word of God has power, acts as a resource, and gives spiritual direction.  

1 Timothy 6:12-14(AMP): Fight the good fight of the faith; lay hold of the eternal life to which you were summoned and [for which] you confessed the good confession [of faith] before many witnesses. In the presence of God, Who preserves alive all living things, and of Christ Jesus, Who in His testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, I [solemnly] charge you to keep all His precepts unsullied and flawless, irreproachable, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ (the Anointed One).

“The profession Timothy and all faithful ministers make before many witnesses is a good profession; for they profess and engage to fight the good fight of faith, and to lay hold on eternal life” – Matthew Henry

Part of fighting this good fight is to profess, to confess, to agree with and declare what the word of God says. Isaiah 55:10-11 “For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, and do not return there, but water the earth, and make it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.”

God’s word is powerful and effective.

We also learn in the book of Jeremiah that the Lord has great plans for our future; plans to prosper us and not to harm us. Because of this, we who are His children need to speak in line with His word. It is for our benefit as well as for the benefit of others that the word of God is declared. The word of the Lord does not go forth without accomplishing what He intends. As believers, we must understand a few things:

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.  (2 Timothy 3:16&17)

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.  (Hebrews 4:12)

For You have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, and my feet from falling. I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living. I believed, therefore I spoke… (Psalm 116:8-10)

And since we have the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, “I believed and therefore I spoke,”[see Psalm 116:10] we also believe and therefore speak, knowing that He who raised up the Lord Jesus will also raise us up with Jesus…  (2 Corinthians 4: 13&14a)

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.  The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light…Then God said…Then God said…Then God said…Then God said…Then God said…And God blessed them, saying…Then God said…Then God said…Then God blessed them, and God said to them…And God said…and it was so…Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. (Genesis 1:1-3, 6, 9, 11, 14, 20, 22, 24, 26, 28, 29, 30, 31)

God’s word is powerful! His word is powerful enough to create our reality. We must believe and speak His word in order to walk in our God-ordained reality and in order to lift up the Lord so that He may draw mankind to Himself. It is a matter of life and death. Confess it!

And finally: Romans 10:14 says, “How then shall they call upon Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher