Yesterday’s step study lesson was CONFESS. If you’re unfamiliar with this, the lesson is the last one before a participant tells his inventory to his sponsor. This is the place where many participants walk away. The truth telling which is brought into light at this point seems too threatening. The promises which follow one’s telling truth which scripture supports regarding finding freedom from sin’s bondage, are hard for many to believe at this point. I was right there myself for way to many years.

Our class is during the second worship hour so I had heard our pastor’s sermon ahead of class starting. I’ve not sat through a better preparatory time for Confess in my life. Even though the sermon was all about Mary and Joseph, it hit home for us. Joseph had a huge decision to make once the angel had met with him in a dream telling him Mary’s pregnancy wasn’t infidelity on her part. It was God’s greatest gift to mankind and he was to support this. So what did Joseph do? He believed and was obedient. The Hebrew term KAIROS was used to describe Joseph’s behavior. It’s meaning is: “a time when we make a choice, and in response to making the choice, the choice then makes us.”

As our lesson concluded yesterday I told the men about this message. None had been in first hour so it was new information to them. I told them they were about to make a choice to tell their inventory to their sponsor. In so doing they would be revealing the most ugly, shameful part of their life which Satan has been hanging over their heads way too long. However, in making the choice to tell, this choice then allows God to fulfill His promise to remake us. It all starts with our first choice–tell/confess. James 5:16 tells us that, “if we confess our sins one to another we will be healed.” This is the second part of KAIROS where the choice then makes us. There is no freedom from the bondage of sin until we confess, but in so doing we have the promise of becoming an entirely new creation–the very one God created us to be. I don’t want to miss out on this!