Who do we confess for? I don’t mean, do we confess for someone else’s sin or for our own. Instead I mean, do we confess for our sake or for God’s sake? Who needs the confession?

God already knows all our sin. He is omniscient, yes. Jesus knew the sin of the woman in John 4 before He met her at the well. But also, if the Father poured out judgment on His Son for the sins of all who would ever believe, then He had to know all of the sins that Jesus needed to pay for. The Father knows every transgression committed by us, including the ones we’ll commit after church, and the Son died for them all. Also, the Spirit isn’t waiting for us to tell Him. The Spirit’s convicting work brings sin to our attention.

We do not confess in order to inform the Trinity of anything. Rather, we confess to acknowledge that we now understand what was keeping us from fellowship with Him and we acknowledge His graciousness to forgive us. He doesn’t call us to confession because He’s spiteful or because He’s trying to embarrass us. He’s saving us out of sin’s crippling effects. He’s inviting us to life, offering us the living water, and we won’t drink unless we sense our dryness.

“Let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire” (Hebrews 12:28–29). We start by confessing.