I opened an all-day marriage seminar with this topic: confession of sin before the Lord. It came about because I decided to lead with the question, “What has been most helpful in my own marriage?” I would have preferred to answer “a soulful, extended hug,” or “laughter”—which was the prescription from a popular marriage seminar we attended years ago. Either would have been a nice way to ease into the day, but for me, the answer was, and is, confession. Confession—ordinary Lord’s-Prayer-confession, “forgive us our debts”—has been most helpful. This is as it should be.
Our relationship with the Lord is the foundation for our relationship with his people. The apostle John naturally moves from one to the other. In the opening to his first epistle, his first conditional clause is about our fellowship with God, and his second is about how right fellowship with God leads to right fellowship with others.
If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another. (1 John 1:6–7)
Then he moves to
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