confessing

In our short discipleship, one of the most important lessons that I got out of my time with Chris Nho was the power of corporate confession.

I don't think AAIV or Asian churches in general do much confession, because we are too afraid to tarnish our perfect image. As the family that has it together, as parents with the kids that went to great college and continued on to have "great" jobs (I put "great" in quotes, because really the only great jobs is something that makes over 100K. Let's just be real here. The number may be even higher depending on the Asian family).

Even as second generation Asian-American Christians, we don't want to ruin our Christian image to others. We want to be see as that mature guy or holy girl.

No one wants to admit that they are sinners. Of course, we procrastinate, we don't reach out enough, etc etc. Yes, we are quick to admit these. And that's great. Sin is sin. But there are easy-to-admit sins in my book, and hard-to-admit ones. And the hard-to-admit ones we keep inside of us. We forget about it. We tell ourselves that it doesn't even matter anymore. Maybe we even undermine the depth of our sin.

Yet, this is so against the Gospel.

In the parable of the Alabastar Jar , Simon, the Pharisee, says this:

“If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner.”

In fact, he is correct in saying that this woman is a sinner. It is because she is a sinner that she so desperately wants forgiveness from Jesus. But the problem isn't that the woman is a sinner. It's that Simon doesn't realize that he is just as wretched as that woman. He simply doesn't have confidence to confess his sins like the woman with the alabaster jar is doing.

And until we can bring forth our sin before Jesus, we can't receive grace. As Andy Bilhorn says, "Grace isn't call grace until sin is called sin."

So what did Chris do?

He told me about an experience he had at Manna. He was going through some troubles with sin that lets just say I have yet to encounter. And he confessed at Manna. It wasn't a confessional Manna, but he confessed to those who were there that day.

Public confession means that you completely acknowledge that you are a sinner. You are not trying to hide behind some Christian mask and make yourself look better than others (like the Pharisee was), but you acknowledge your place. Only then are we truly "Unashamed."

And the beauty of confession in public? It's a churches/fellowships way of displaying the Gospel. We don't snicker at others confessions, we don't spread rumors, we don't love them less. No, if anything we love them more for being so vulnerable. We embrace robbers, we embrace porn addicts, we embrace cheaters. We embrace you. Not because of what you've done, but because of WHO you are in Christ Jesus.

So to those who read, I confess that I am not the holy man you might think I am.
I confess that I've stolen many things. I confess that I've cheated on tests and projects. I confess I'm addicted to pornography and masturbation. I confess that I am a sexist and a racist. I confess that I am a sinner.

The only thing that's good in me is Jesus