7 Secrets of Confession by Flynn Vinny

Author:Flynn, Vinny [Flynn, Vinny]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781884479465
Publisher: MercySong / Ignatius Press
Published: 2013-08-01T00:00:00+00:00

SECRET 6

New Wine Needs New Skins

You should put away the old self

of your former way of life, …

be renewed in the spirit of your minds,

and put on the new self

Ephesians 4:22-24

I’m almost afraid to start this chapter, because it’s so important. Everything I’ve said so far — all the ideas and concepts I’ve shared in Secrets 1-5 — have been in preparation for this.

If you were to stop reading now, you might just miss the whole point of it all.

All those “different” ideas are not really separate and unrelated. They are individual but connected parts of a more complete truth.

It’s like a jigsaw puzzle, with a thousand little pieces spread out on a table. If you focus only on the individual pieces, you’ll never finish the puzzle. You have to look for where and how the pieces are connected, so you can begin to see the picture they form together — the jigsaw puzzle of God’s love.

What’s the picture? It’s the image of a three-personed God who fathered you into life, loves you with an everlasting love, waits with open arms for you to return every time you stray, and is always ready to forgive and heal — so that He can recreate you and restore you to the fullness of life for which He created you in the first place.

I have come that they may have life and have it to the full.

John 10:10 (NIV)

The goal of confession is new life, rebirth, transformation, restoration of friendship, and communion with God, so that you can begin living in a whole new way, the way Christ Himself lives.

Ring out the old, ring in the new!

Let’s take another quick look at some of the “pieces” of this confession puzzle to see how they fit together to bring about this new life.

In Secret 1, we saw that sin isn’t just about behavior; it’s about relationship with God. It’s when we refuse to let God father us, refuse to live in right relationship with Him as His sons and daughters. We saw that our sin doesn’t change God; it changes us by separating us from His love.

So, the real problem is not our sinful behaviors. The real problem is in our hearts. We have turned our hearts away from God. Sin has changed us; we need to let grace change us back.

Confession calls us to repentance and conversion. It calls us to do a complete about-face in the way we live: to turn our hearts back to God and come out of the cave into the light and warmth of His love.

As your hearts have been disposed to stray from God, turn now ten times more to seek him.

Baruch 4:28

Secret 2 took us a bit further. We saw that, since our sins themselves aren’t the real problem, then forgiveness alone isn’t the solution. We can’t just confess our sinful behaviors, receive absolution, and then go back to life as usual. Our sins wound us and, even after they are forgiven, we remain wounded, confused, and spiritually weak.

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