I have a confession to make

Here is another piece of poetry I first heard performed at my son’s school. This piece also reveals how close some trapped in traditional Christianity are seeing something more real that the “milk” continually fed to them by those who have nothing deeper or more profound to offer them.

My comments are inserted in italics.

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I have a confession to make
Grace is more racy than homosexuality

Yes! Grace is more—much more than the watered-down definition assigned to it in traditional Christianity. Grace is not just “unmerited favor.” Oh, it is certainly that, but it is much, much more than that. Grace is the whole triune God dispensed into us as Christ, through the Spirit, for our enjoyment. We are to be vessel for God and God desires to dispense Himself into us as life. “He who has the Spirit, has life,” the scriptures teach us.

More full of life than teenage pregnancy

So, yes! Grace is more full of life than teenage pregnancy.

More captivating than pornography

Since grace is for our satisfaction—to fully satisfy us by fulfilling God’s real plan and purpose for His creation of us—when found and received as God intends, it will captivate us. Christ, “taking captivity captive” will liberate us from every lesser satisfaction if we fully open to Him.

Grace is far more potent than anything that could make us guilty

Ditto above.
 
But we treat grace like a child

Yes, we treat grace like a child because traditional Christianity has lost sight of the fullness of God’s grace as it really it. Grace is not a “thing.” “The law was given,” the scriptures tell us, but “grace came” in the person of Jesus Christ as the whole God (not just one-third of God) [John 1:17]. And, “of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace” [John 1:16].

When we hide our sin and question its ability

Again, yes! We do this because traditional Christianity fails to teach us concerning the reality of grace. Therefore, instead of “coming forward with boldness to the throne of grace,” we find ourselves shrinking back and being fearful of, rather than enjoying God.

 

I have a confession to make
The measure of a Christian
Is not how well their sin is hidden
Or how many church services they have attended
Or how low the number of transgressions
They have committed is
The measure of a Christian
Is hidden in Christ
Whom they have been given

To this verse, I can only say a resounding, “Amen!” Not only is “the measure of a Christian… hidden in Christ,” the whole believer is “hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3).

I have a confession to make
There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus
And that goes for
The Gossip as well as the Alcoholic
The Greedy as well as those in adultery
The Apathetic as well as the Addict
The Judgmental as well as the Homosexual

”Amen!” And again I say, “Amen!” Traditional Christianity, much like the Jews of Jesus’ day, has wrapped its religion in outward forms of “rightness” and “wrongness”—returning unwittingly to the tree of knowledge of good and evil—in order to keep its adherents from discovering the hollow shell it really is. In doing so they have rejected Christ as the Tree of Life, even as Jesus warned the Jews: “You search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is these that testify concerning Me. Yet you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life.” (John 5:39f)

We're all looking for something we can throw
At anyone whose sin looks worse than our own
But we are all sinners, we've all been exposed
So none of us are left with even a single stone
I have a confession to make
Anyone who calls themselves a Christian
Makes the ultimate confession
For Christ did not come for
The healthy, but for those who need medication
The prostitutes,  murderers and those in rehabilitation
So if you claim to be a Christian
You claim to be in need of powerful salvation

I have a confession to make
We are all trapped in shame
Until we give sin a name
For we all play this game
Where we try to look the same
By modifying and hiding our behavior
So no one can see our sin and make us a stranger
But what we don't realize is that we are in danger
For if we live like we have no sin, then we live like we need no savior

The problem with giving sin “a name,” in traditional Christianity, is that Christianity—to far too great a degree—has no healthy teaching to bring real liberty from the power or sin that resides in the flesh. As long as the Christian is left to “do the best you can,” “pray every day,”  and “just hang on,” he remains impotent in the face of sin. Therefore, the weak sinner find that he is loathe to confess this selfsame weakness in the face of ever-present sin. Contrary to the teaching of Scripture, though he now has Christ, he still—all too often—finds that the lack of healthy teaching leaves him still “without hope in this world.”

I have a confession to make
My eyes, lips, and mind are stained and unclean
From images, drinks, and words that would have condemned me
But I'm not saved because I'm perfect or have my sin under control
I'm saved because I need saving and that is the Gospel

I have a confession to make
You no longer have to hide
For God has seen everything that you are
And still came for you and died
It doesn't matter if everyone rejects you
You are still his spotless bride
Come join me in confession
Where we still every brother's suspicion
Every sister's suggestion
Because we have stepped fully in the light
Without any hesitation
No longer can we hide
Nor do we feel the inclination
For freedom's far better
Than staying in incarceration

Many saints today feel that the Scriptures ring hollow when they declare, “Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty, wherewith Christ has set you free,” for they do not yet feel free. Oh, they might momentarily. They might even feel freshly cleansed after some soulical experience during some retreat or meeting. But the sense of being truly free never seems to last long.

This is not the Christian’s fault. This is the failing of traditional Christianity to bring the reality of God’s eternal economy to the man for a full, organic salvation.

Come make your confession
And rob sin of its power
For what strength does it have
If its shame's been devoured

Come make your confession
And make room for healing
Both for yourself and for others
Whom with your very sin they have been dealing

Come make your confession
And rid the church of its judges
For if everyone is confessing
There's no room to make judgments

Amen!

I have a confession to make
God is not condemning
And we should not be trying
To play his role

Let us start to pick up our cross instead of our stones
Hurl rocks of Gospel at each other instead of blows

Open our mouths to confess and forgive instead of keeping them closed
And overlook the speck in another's eye so we can attend to the plank in our own

I have a confession to make
And, church, it's time you made yours too
For Christ did not die so that we may hide
But to love us in spite of the wrong we do

So come, speak your sins
On the alter of confession
It doesn't matter if the world says you're condemned
Because all God speaks is salvation 

Yes! God speaks salvation—a full, organic salvation—through a reality that includes an organic union with His Son, Jesus Christ. In fact, “God, having spoken of old in many portions and in many ways to the fathers in the prophets, has at the last of these days spoken to us in the Son.” (Hebrews 1:1f). The very language by which God is speaking His eternal salvation today is these last days is “the Son” and His speaking is found in the church—His Bride—called by His Name. “The Spirit and the Bride say, ‘Come!’”

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Poetry copyright David Bowden