The Price of Confession: Why Accountability Matters

Proverbs 28:13 – Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.

Shortly after obtaining my drivers license I received my first speeding ticket. After having a good talk with my mom, I knew I was going to be in a lot of trouble if I received another. Well, about 1-2 months later, on my way home from a friend’s house, I was ticketed again for going 15 over the speed limit. As a 16 year old kid, I knew telling my mom the truth was the last thing I wanted to do. Therefore, I devised a plan (with the inclusion of my grandmother) to hide the ticket and the evidence. However, my “plan” didn’t work and backfired. My mom eventually found out and my punishment was much more severe for the simple fact of: lying, attempting to cover it up, and not taking accountability for my actions. It’s true that “the cover-up is often worse than the crime.”

There’s another person who can relate to the same actions as mine: lying, deception, and not taking accountability. He was once a well-known king of Israel and the author of majority of the Psalms in the scriptures—his name was David. Like myself, David’s transgressions (wrong doings) got the best of him. As king of Israel, while his troops were out at war, David’s lustful heart got caught up in committing adultery with one of his soldiers wives. Like myself, David attempted to devise a plan to conceal the evidence by having this soldier killed by moving him to the front line of battle. David’s lack of accountability led him to commit both adultery and murder. Like myself, he assumed no one knew. But God, who knows all things, spoke through the prophet Nathan and confronted him on his sins (2 Samuel 11-12).

David and I are not alone because we all have a little bit of Adam and Eve in us that’s prone to hiding our sins with transparent fig leaves (Genesis 3:7). The question is what are you hiding before God and others? What do you need to confess? There are several ways of “concealing” sin, in addition to simply hiding it from others. We can excuse it (act like it doesn’t exist), we can blame others for it (not take accountability), or we can call it by another name (justifying our actions). We may be able for a time to conceal our sin from others and even lie to ourselves, but we can never conceal it from our all-seeing God who judges all sin.

As today’s scripture says, there’s freedom, mercy, prosperity and likely less severe consequences from both others and God when we confess our sins. What’s done in darkness will eventually come to light. And as Jesus himself said “the truth shall surely set you free” (John 8:32).

Read Psalm 51 — David’s Psalm of conviction and plea for God’s mercy after his sin of lying, adultery, and murder was brought to light.