“In failing to confess, Lord, I only hide You from myself, not myself from You.” Augustine

For those who wear glasses, you know exactly what the following means: Spots on your lenses.

You’re cleaning them one moment. And the next, you’re seeing water spots. Dust particles. Fingerprint smudges. It doesn’t matter where or what, those spots affect your vision.

You’ll put up with them for a while. But when the sun hits them while you’re driving – watch out!

Augustine was spot on. Unconfessed sin doesn’t keep Jesus from seeing us or altering His view of us one iota. It does, however, allow our lie-based choices, sin, to stay on our lenses.

Let that sink in. Past unconfessed sin will overtime become the basis for our decision making in the present. The sin, the action we took based on a lie-based thought, is now stored in our brains (“the flesh” of Gal.6:8), which can become the basis of future choices.

Yet, 1 John 1:9 starts off with, “If we confess our sins.” Notice the word if. It’s our choice whether or not we confess or acknowledge that our choice was sin.

Confession is calling the thought we chose to follow a lie. This leads to asking for and receiving forgiveness for choosing to follow that lie. And because Jesus is faithful, He will cleanse us from that sin.

Stay clean. Make confession part of your daily devotional life. Start off by asking the Spirit to show you where you’ve sinned. Then be quiet. When He points out something, confess it. And when He’s done, you’re in a much better position to hear from Jesus in the Scriptures.

By the way, I carry a cloth to clean my lenses the moment I notice a spot. We all carry that same cloth, it’s called confession. Use it to stay clean throughout your day.