The Spiritual Weapon of Confession

Confession: From a Greek word meaning “to speak the same”, also meaning to assent,” is to consider something carefully and then to come into agreement.

Confession to God is the process of thinking through things carefully until we come to the place where we think and speak the same as God thinks and speaks about us and our situation.

Confession is a much larger concept than simply admitting when we have done something wrong.

Confession and repentance are necessary after we have sinned, however confession is a powerful spiritual weapon to use against sin when it comes to us in the form of temptation. When sin comes to us to tempt us into sinning, sincere confession puts God to work on our behalf to send away the sin according to 1 John 1:9.

Tools to help us get our thoughts and our words in alignment with God:

1. Ask yourself the following question: “What would Jesus say about my situation? Based on what Jesus said about Himself, His nature and character, and how He interacted with people, what would he say about this situation?”

2. Answer the following questions from God’s perspective, as though God were speaking to you.

• a. What effect is this________________having on my relationship to God?
• b. What effect is this ______________having on the fruit of the Spirit in me?
• c. How does this_____________make me feel about myself?
• d. What effect is this___________having on my relationships to those that are closest to me?
• e. What good thing that God wants me to have in my life is this__________trying to steal, kill or destroy?

3. Now repeat a-e above declaring what God desires for you in each of the areas where the enemy is trying to steal and destroy?

4. Make sure that your answers agree with the Word of God from the Bible and His heart of compassion toward us. Then, confess, profess, declare the answer to these questions. If you are finding and speaking what God would speak, you are speaking the truth. God and all of heaven will support the truth. Confess and declare the truth no matter how you feel. If you will persist in the process, eventually your mind and your heart will come into agreement with the truth, that is, with God.

5. Of course confession requires a simultaneous commitment to obedience or the confession is merely meaningless works that will result in an unstable life. (Matt 7:21-27) As you persist in this process, you will mature and you will become trained to discern good and evil better and better. (Heb 5:11-14, John 7:17, 8:31-32).

Adapted from Barry Byrne’s Spiritual Weapon of Confession, MFT 2003