Struggling. Wow, just the word alone probably is bringing a flood of scenarios to your mind. All of us struggle. Maybe we have struggled in the past or maybe we are struggling now. If neither of these apply to your life at this moment than be assured you will struggle in the future. It is the nature of life on this earth. We struggle. We are in a fight. The question is, what do you do with those things you struggle with? Do you try to handle them on your own? Do you ignore them? Do you pretend they don't exist? Well, none of these are really the answer to dealing with the things we struggle with.
Here is an incredible candid confession from a teenager who struggled with thoughts and labels put on him by others. These thoughts were placed in his mind by words that were spoken over him as a child. He was labeled. The part I love the most in this testimony is toward the end of the clip when he says, "I said it". He confessed his struggle to the Christian group he was in and he says that was the beginning of my healing. (Note - we confess to people we can trust and NOT everyone we know, even if they are a Christian, are able to keep our confessions to themselves.)
The principle of confession is SO biblical and yet many of us don't do this beyond our salvation. Confession you ask? Yep! Let me show you the power of confession in the Word. Look at I John 1:9. You know it. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. We do this for salvation, but do you do it after you have been saved? Do you confess your sin or do you use cliches that is "all under the blood"? Well, it is true our sin is washed away, but we need to confess it too. What about the sins you commit after salvation? What do we do with those?
How about James 5:16. Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much. Seems to me that if more Christians were doing this fewer people would be calling us hypocrites. We do like to hide our shortcomings in the river of forgiveness and yet, doesn't it clearly say here that we are to confess?
We all know that confession is the way to salvation and it absolutely is! Remember in Romans 10:9...that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. And in Matthew 10:32 (Jesus speaking), "Therefore everyone who confesses Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father who is in heaven." Similar to this is the verse found in Luke 12:8 (again Jesus speaking), "And I say to you, everyone who confesses Me before men, the Son of Man will confess him also before the angels of God." Finally there is Philippians 2:11 which says, that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
There are more scriptures about confessing regarding Jesus acknowledging us before His father and that only the Spirit that is of God can confess that Jesus is from God. See, there is power in confession. It will set you free! The beginning of the walk of Christian begins with confession. We confess we are sinners and are in need of salvation but this is where the journey BEGINS. We, as Christians, should live our lives confession. It is how we get and stay free! It keeps us humble and heals us. Powerful principle, the act of confession.