It’s Time To Come Clean

One of the most important and difficult phases in our journey towards spiritual transformation is the process is confession.

This is where we admit we’ve got a problem. It’s where we stop blaming everything and everybody else and say, “The problem lies within me.” Until we do, there will be no change. The breakthrough happens when we confess and admit that we’re the problem.

When God wrestled with Jacob He asked, “What is your name?” (Genesis 32:27 NKJV)
What a strange request. God knew his name, so why did He ask Jacob to say it? It wasn’t because God needed to know, rather it’s because Jacob had to fess up and own exactly who and what he was.

Names in those days are nothing like they are today. In ancient cultures a name represented who that person was.

And that’s Jacob’s problem. Jacob means deceiver. Jacob was a master manipulator, a con artist of the highest caliber. He got his brother Esau to sell him his birthright for a bowl of Campbell’s Chunky Soup. Later he conned his dad into giving him Esau’s first-born blessing.

So by telling God his name, Jacob was confessing exactly who he was. He was saying, “I am a deceiver and master manipulator, and I’ve even been trying to manipulate You.”

If your name matched your greatest character flaw, what would it be: Bitterness, Anger, Prideful, Lustful, Adulterer, User, Depressed, Fearful, Afraid, or Gossip?
We will never effect the change we desire until we openly and honestly admit our sins and confess them.

Who are you? What’s your name? Take a moment and fill in the blank. “This Is Who I Am” _______________

We need to stop making excuses if we want to change. We need to stop rationalizing and justifying our sin and blaming others. We’ve got to come clean.

When we confess our sins, Jesus is just and faithful to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness, 1 John 1:9.