How to confess to God, plainly

Confessing to God means telling him, in your own words, exactly what you did, agreeing with him that it was wrong, and asking his forgiveness on the basis of what Jesus has done. That is the whole of it. There is no formula, no minimum length, and no set of words that works better than honest ones. You can do it now, wherever you are, silently or aloud, and God hears it.

If that sounds too simple, it is because most of us have quietly added conditions God never set: that we must feel bad enough first, that we must have stopped before we are allowed to ask, that we must find the right phrasing. Scripture cuts through all of it in one line.

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

Notice what is asked of us: confession. Notice what is promised: forgiveness and cleansing. And notice on what basis: God’s faithfulness and justice, not our performance.

Why it has to be said at all

God already knows. So why say it?

Because the saying is for you, not for him. David describes what it was like to keep quiet after his adultery and the murder he arranged to cover it.

When I kept silent, my bones became brittle from my groaning all day long. For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was drained as in the summer heat. Selah Then I acknowledged my sin to You and did not hide my iniquity. I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD,” and You forgave the guilt of my sin. Selah — Psalm 32:3-5

Silence did not make the sin smaller; it made David smaller. Confession did not inform God of anything. It ended the hiding, and the hiding was the thing that had been eating him. A sin you refuse to name keeps its power over you precisely because it stays in the dark. Naming it to God drags it into the light, where it can be dealt with.

What to say

Say what you did. That sounds obvious, but there are three ways people manage to confess for a long time without ever saying it.

Use the real word. Not “I wasn’t as careful as I should have been,” but “I lied.” Not “things got heated,” but “I was cruel to my wife.” Not “I’ve been struggling,” but “I looked at pornography again last night.” God is not embarrassed by the word, and you cannot be forgiven for a sin you will not name.

Leave out the explanation. You may well have been tired, provoked, lonely or afraid. Those things are true and God knows them. But in confession they are not the point, and they have a way of becoming the point. David does not say, “I was on the roof and she was bathing.” He says:

For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. Against You, You only, have I sinned and done what is evil in Your sight, so that You may be proved right when You speak and blameless when You judge. — Psalm 51:3-4

Agree with God about it. The word the New Testament uses for confess means, more or less, to say the same thing. To confess is to say about your sin what God says about it: that it was wrong, that it was against him, that it deserved his judgement. This is different from feeling terrible. You may feel terrible or you may feel numb; the feeling is not the confession. The agreement is.

A confession, then, can be as short as this: “Father, I lied to my manager today to cover for something I did not do. That was a sin against you. I have no excuse. Please forgive me for Jesus’ sake.” That is a complete confession. Nothing is missing from it.

What not to bother saying

You do not need to promise you will never do it again. You probably will, and God knows that better than you do. Promise instead that you will turn from it today and ask for his help. Confession that ends with a grand vow tends to end, a week later, with a bigger sense of failure.

You do not need to work up tears. Some people weep and some do not; the tax collector in Jesus’ story managed only seven words.

But the tax collector stood at a distance, unwilling even to lift up his eyes to heaven. Instead, he beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner!’ — Luke 18:13

Jesus says that man went home justified. Seven words, no eloquence, no promises. Just the truth and a plea.

You do not need to punish yourself first. Skipping a meal, refusing to enjoy anything, replaying the scene until it hurts: none of this is confession, and none of it adds anything to what Christ did. If you are doing it, you are quietly trying to pay for something that has already been paid for.

Then take him at his word

This is the step most people miss. Having confessed, they wait to feel forgiven, and when the feeling does not come they assume the confession did not work, so they confess again, and again, and the loop tightens.

Forgiveness is not a feeling. It is something God does, and he tells you he has done it. After you have confessed, read 1 John 1:9 again, slowly, and then say out loud: “God has said that if I confess he forgives. I have confessed. He has forgiven me.” That is not presumption. It is faith, and it honours God far more than doubting him does.

He who conceals his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them will find mercy. — Proverbs 28:13

Renounce as well as confess

The proverb pairs two verbs: confess and renounce. Confession that is honest will include some intention to turn. This does not mean you have already won; it means you are no longer defending the sin. Practically, it may mean deleting something, telling someone, changing a route home, or writing an apology. If you know what the next honest step is, name it to God as part of your confession. If you do not know, ask him to show you.

A pattern you can use

If it helps to have a shape, try this. It is not a formula; it is just an order that keeps you honest.

1. Address God. “Father,” or “Lord Jesus,” or simply “God.” He is a person, not a process.
2. Name the sin. One sentence, real words, no context.
3. Agree with him. “That was wrong. It was against you.”
4. Ask. “Forgive me, because of Jesus.”
5. Turn. “Help me to stop. Today I will …”
6. Receive. Read a promise and thank him for it.

The whole thing can take a minute. It can also take an hour, if there is a great deal to say. God is not timing you.

When the words will not come

Sometimes you cannot even do this much. You sit down to pray and nothing happens, or you are so ashamed that you cannot bring yourself to say the word. Two things help.

First, write it. Something about seeing the sentence on a page makes it real and, oddly, smaller. The writing space on the home page of this site exists for that reason: no one reads it, nothing is kept beyond a day, and the companion will not do anything except point you to what God has said. Write the sentence you cannot say.

Second, borrow words. Psalm 51 has been the confession of Christians for three thousand years. If your own words fail, read it aloud, slowly, as your own. God has never once turned away someone who came to him with David’s words in their mouth and David’s sorrow in their heart.

Where Christians differ

Christians agree that sin must be confessed to God and that he forgives through Christ. They differ on whether confession to a priest is required. Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christians hold that serious sins should be confessed to a priest, who pronounces absolution; most Protestants hold that every believer may confess directly to God and receives forgiveness on the promise of Scripture, while also valuing confession to a trusted Christian for prayer and accountability. This site is written from the second view, and it does not argue with the first; there is a separate guide on the question.

Before you finish

Confession is not complete until you have done it. If you have read this far because there is something you need to say, stop reading and say it. Then go, as Hebrews puts it, to the throne of grace with confidence.

Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. — Hebrews 4:16

And within the week, find a Christian you trust and tell them too, not for absolution but so that someone can pray for you and you are no longer carrying it alone.