Luke 19:9 Zacchaeus stood, and said unto the Lord: Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have taken any thing from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold.

I feel like I dropped a bomb on you yesterday. Confession and forgiveness is about restoration of relationship with God but has nothing to do with restoration of relationship with your fellow man. Sin still has earthly consequences. This is the more difficult issue to deal with.

God loves you perfectly and His reaction to confession is predictable. Mankind on the other hand is less than perfect and their reaction to any effort to restore right relationship is subject to them. It is our responsibility to try for the commandment is to love God and then one another.

Years ago some of my work responsibility was shifted from me to a co-worker. Fear of losing my job crept into my heart and I voiced an opinion which was unkind. It got back to her. Being convicted of my actions I went to her and confessed my sin and asked forgiveness. Her reaction was that she didn’t have it in her to forgive.

After I left her cubical another employee approached me and said that I did the right thing. Because of my effort I was restored in relationship with this person, even if not with the other. I did what was right and the burden of forgiveness moved off me to the one with the unforgiving heart.

Proverbs 25:21-22 If thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat; and if he be thirsty, give him water to drink: For thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head, and the Lord shall reward thee.

Doing the right thing relieves you of the burden.

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

Yesterday I said I would find another word to deal with sin, that I would not justify sin.  The word is confess. Now the title of this devotional is Counter Intuitive because confession is not the natural reaction to sin. We see that in the reactions in original sin. Deflection is the first instinct.

When you break the law and are arrested you get a lawyer, an advocate. His job is to get you off with as little penalty as possible. His goal is to set you free. He could care less how you feel about your crime, that isn’t his job. He will tell you to plead not guilty so that he can argue your case.

That’s the law. Sin isn’t subject to the law. Sin still exists where the law says you are good to go. In both cases the law is powerless to change how you feel about sin. The emotional side of sin, conviction of conscience, will still be hounding you unless you can find an advocate that cares about your feelings.

1 John 2:1b And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:

The goal of our advocate Jesus Christ is restoration of relationship. Righteous means in right standing. Our advocate has a right standing in the courts of heaven. We confess our sins to Him and He turns to the Father and says, “He’s good to go. I’ve got him covered.”

John 8:36 If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.

You can now come away from your confession with restored relationship with the Father. You are now free to deal with the consequences of you sins. Oops, don’t have space to deal with that today. Check back tomorrow.