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confession(why to Abouna not GOD)
Why when we confess to any thing that we do wrong we have to go and tell abouna so he can ask GOD to forgive us. Why can't we just confess directly to God????? God is the one who is forgiving us not abouna so why do we go to abouna not God???? little help guys plzzzz ??? ???
Comments
OLD TESTAMENT
-"Now Joshua said to Achan, "My son, I beg you give glory to the Lord God of Israel, and make CONFESSION to Him, and tell me now what you have done; do not hide it from me" Joshua 7:19
-"And it shall be, when he is guilty in any of these matters, that he shall CONFESS that he has sinned in that thing" Leviticus 5:5
-"He who covers his sins will not prosper, But whoever CONFESSES and forsakes them will have mercy" Proverbs 28:13
*NEW TESTAMENT
----authority for disciples and priests to forgive sins:
-"And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and said to them, "receive the Holy Spirit. If you FORGIVE the sins of any, they are FORGIVEN them; if you retain the sins of any they are RETAINED" John20:22,23
-"Assurdely I say to you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven" Mathew 18:18
---------------------------
-"Then Peter said to them, "REPENT, and let everyone of you be baptized in the name of Christ, for the REMISSION OF SINS and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit" Acts2:38
-"And many who had believed came CONFESSING AND TELLING THEIR DEEDS" Acts 19:18
-"If we CONFESS our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" 1John1:9
Jesus came and He gave authority to His disciples to forgive sins, just as He forgives us our sins. St. Paul says, "for if I forgave anything, to whom I forgave it, for your sakes forgave I it in the person of Christ (2 Cor 2:10). And St. James says, "Confess therefore your sins one to another; and pray one for another, that you may be saved" (James 5: 14-16)
When we go to confess our sins to a priest, it is as if we are going to Christ Himself, because priests are a symbol of Christ. We cant just sin and pray to God until we feel that He has forgiven us..without confessing to a priest. When you sin, you must feel sorrow and regret and beg God for the forgiveness of your sins, then you should go to a priest, confess your sins, He will give you advice on what to do, and some spiritual pratice, and will give you absolution for your sins. When we sin, we become black and filthy from sin, but when we confess them, He promised us that "though your sins be as scarlet they shall be as WHITE AS SNOW" Isaiah 1:18. So we must confess to a priest.
Confession to a priest might be hard for us sometimes or difficult, because it is hard for us to tell our life secrets(sins) to another person, but after you go to confess, you will feel like you are a new person in Christ, because God has washed all your sins away. God is so loving and so merciful and He gave us the sacrament of confession..so that we may be purified from our sins. There is nothing to be ashamed of really when going to confess, each of us have sinned, and no matter what the sin is if we really repent God will forgive us, as He forgave the sinner woman. God knows all the hidden things of our life, He knows all our sins, so we should be more ashamed and afraid from God if we dont confess our sins....
Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed.
James 5:16
Aboona is a symbol of Christ on earth and Jesus gave the power to His disciples to forgive sins, and in turn they gave it to priests....
Well as confession & repentance are one of the 7 sacraments of the church, they go hand in hand..there can not be repentance without confession...We repent and cry out to God that He may forgive us our sins and have mercy on us...but we also have to go confess it to a priest
....
im not doing a good job at this sorry..im confused too..now ??? :-\
1) Confession to God: We must first confess our sins to Christ and seek forgiveness from him because when we commit our sins to our fellow brothers and sisters it is as though you are commiting them to Jesus Himself. It says in Psalm 51:4 "Against you, you only have I sinned and done this evil in your sight", therefore we always have to confess to God himself first because u have commited this sin before him FIRST than anyone else.
2) Confession to your FOC: There are many reasons why we have to confess to our spiritual fathers; we have to confess to them because they are as stewards of the mysteries og God as it says in 1 Corinthians 4:1"Let a man so consider us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of ?God." We also need to confess to a priest because he is the only one that can grant us the permission to partake of the Holy communion and give us the absolution. Our confession fathers are here so that we as youth have guidance and support in our lives. No man or woman can be trusted as much as your confession father because they will never judge you according to your sin or laugh at you or call you stupid like ur friends would, he will only try to help you and guide you to correct your mistake. Don't forget also that the Bible says "Confess your trespasses to one another"(ionno where that is)
3)Confession to those You've sinned against: The only reason that we need to confess to those we've sinned against is so that we wipe out any feeling of anger and tension between us and them."One of my favorite verses, "Therefore, bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother and then come offer your gift"(Matthew 5:23-24)
4) Confession to self: We must always confess or admitt our sins to ourselves always because if you can't admitt your sins before yourself, how can you present them before the Lord? If confessing to yourself does not happen, you will be reluctant to do all of those things. You can confess to a priest because u didnt confess to yourself, u cant confess to God because there's no admitting that you were wrong and that u have sinned against Him and you will not want to reconcile with ur brother or nething/neone else for that matter.
So, i'm sorry this was long, but its just i have so much to say because i've always asked this question and wondered about it and i found that the book Spiritual Means was the only one that answered it really, so i hope this helped a little and sorry 4 the length guys ;)
GOD BLESS ALL! :-*
GOD BLESS ALL! :-*
i think i can help, see i had the same question and did alot of askin around and alot of research, and well i relized it was all great and all but none of it really hit me like OHHH THATS WHY u knwo... but the way i persoanlly see it is that.. if we jus confessed to god then it almost become automatic... like ... hi God, i lied thanks bye!.. but speaking formyself and probably others, we go to abouna and wer ekind of ashamed.. like oh man i told him last time i lied! man.. and you feel the sence of guilt and shame because our telling another person espically with someone witht he spiritually of an abouna. So the point is when you feel your guilt and shame it opens your eyes more to your sins an din turn gives you the courage to fight it and so the next time you go back to abouna u feel liek you accomplished something and therefore achieve a sence of pride!..pride that we beat the devil and became closer with God!
well i hope this helps and isnt to sunday school teacher-ish lol..
God Bless
Andrew
yes that is true youst
i heard that the reason we confess to abouna is that if u confess to God you would do the sin again but if u say it to abouna youll get imbarresed and u wont hopefully do it again
i hope it makes sense
GB
FROG
Youst 718.....Its great to be able to understand an idea but when it becomes an exprience then it means more to us ;D..which is what you just shared here. Your testimony gives glory to God by being a good example of a gratefully repentant ahooyah ('brother' in Arabic for those who dont know ;)) who has expeirenced the sacramental graces of Holy Confession!
Please permit me to share one thing concerning another reason for going to Abouna. As Church we are the Body of Christ and if we sin against the Head who is Christ, then we sin against the Body, the Church, as well. Thus their is a spiritual connection among all of us and if sin alienates (or separates) us from God who is the Head, then it also alienates the sunner from the REST of the Body, the Church.
This is why in the Old Testament people who broke a Commandment were considered unclean ( ritually or otherwise) thus they had to make a sacrifice at the temple AND be declared clean by the priest to be able to join the people in worship and as a full fledged member of Israel. WE find this even when people who were blind or sick with leprosy, they had to go to the temple and be seen by the priest to be declared CLEAN. We see this in the Holy Gospels when the Lord Jesus heals the leper in Matthew [glow=red,2,300]5:12-16.[/glow]
We can see ourselves as "spiritually sick" and the Church is the Hospital where we receive the medicine who is Jesus Christ through the Sacraments especially the Holy Eucharist. This is how Orthodoxy views mankind in a very gentle and therapeutic way.
God bless You +