Confession can be life-changing. To know that someone else knows your secrets and shames and forgives you, loves you even, that is a powerful thing, too hard to put into words. And you know then it's not because of what you've done, nor necessarily even because of who you are but because of who they see in you, the potential you, the perfected you.

Ephesians 2:1-10 Wrote:You were dead through the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once lived, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient. 3 All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else. 4 But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us 5 even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— 9 not the result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.

I've shared this passage before, but I find it so mind-blowing that I come back to it again and again and again. Who has not felt that deathly shame at some point in their lives? The Bible teaches that our sin, which is so much more complex and subtle than an the big stuff you probably think about when you hear that word, makes us spiritually dead and we carry that death around with us wherever we go. But God - was there ever a greater conjunction? - didn't leave things that way, because he is 'rich in mercy', because of his 'great love with which he loved us', 'made us alive with Christ' and leads us on to be the best version of ourselves.

The love, the mercy, the generosity, the extravagance of this passage are beyond belief, literally. Belief is just the beginning and all this follows when we put our trust in Christ, offer up our lives, in all their spiritual death, and honestly bring our sin before him. And he loves us anyway.

Sometimes, even as a Christian, your sin catches up with you and you have to face it and name it and own up to it, not just to God, but to those whom your sin has affected. Being a Christian doesn't make you perfect - that's a work of God to be completed beyond this lifetime - it doesn't make you immune to temptations or stupid mistakes. If you've ever got the impression that Christians were 'holier than thou'... well, enabling you to think that was just one of them. We are sinners saved by grace, not from ever committing sin again, nor even from facing the consequences in this world of sins already past, but from the spiritual death those sins bring. If we're ever anything more than this, then that is by God's grace too and when we hit those low lows, it's passages like this, reminding us of the promised love of God, which help us to lift our eyes once more.

Thank you, God!

What strikes you about the passage above? What surprises you? What might you agree or disagree with? What might you confess?