The Confession of Faith

Or, in other words, we could say, hold on to the confession of our faith, keep on confessing what we believe, because God is faithful to perform His promise, He is going to come through.

So then, the confession of our faith has to do with something God has promised. It is a profession or a confession, a speaking forth, of our faith in something God has said He would do. That’s what a confession of faith is.

Let us hold fast to the confession with our mouth about what God has promised, for He is faithful who made the promise. Faithful means that He is worthy of trust and can be relied upon to carry out what He has said He would do.

Why would we need to hold fast to our profession or confession of faith? Because there will likely be an urge to give it up and stop confessing it. In other words, the promise may take some time to become a reality in our lives.

Trusting the Promise

God made a promise to Abraham, a promise that he would have a son by his wife, Sarah, though Abraham was about 99 years old and Sarah was about 90. In the natural, it looked impossible.

Abraham did not focus on his age or the age of his wife, but rather he set his attention on the promise. He did not stagger or waver in his trust of it. It says that he was strong in faith, faith in the promise, and he gave glory to God. Or we could say that He had a strong opinion, a strong judgment, a strong view of the faithfulness of God. And He gave God glory. How? With his mouth, with his agreement with what God had promised.

And in doing so, he became fully persuaded that even though it looked impossible in the natural, yet God was able to bring it to pass, and that He would indeed bring to pass what He had promised. That was what he believed, and that’s what he confessed with his mouth.

God had already changed his name from Abram, or exalted father, to Abraham, which means the father of a multitude. Every time he spoke his name to someone, he was agreeing with God’s promise that he would have as many children as the stars of heaven.

And it had to be a confession of faith, or belief in God’s faithfulness to His promise, because at the time of confessing it, he did not yet have any children by Sarah.

But what God had promised did come to pass, and in a relatively short amount of time, because God had said that at this time next year Sarah will have a child. So, she would have to have gotten pregnant within 3 months or less from the time God promised it so as to have the child within a year.

Do We Really Need to Confess the Promises?

That we may boldly say. Say what? That the Lord is my helper, and I will not fear. Why boldly say that? For he has promised, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.

We boldly say it, or confess it, because we believe what He has promised. So, we are making a bold confession of faith, based on what God has already said.

Personal Testimony

Okay. That makes sense, and it's a fairly strong argument for confessing or boldly speaking God’s promises over our life.

But when I was sick a while back I was listening to a recording of healing scriptures, and the minister, Kenneth E. Hagin, who was reading the scriptures said, “Now I want you to do something. I want you to read these two passages of scriptures over and over and make this confession.”

And the confession was that, according to Deuteronomy 28:61 all disease, including COVID 19, are part of the curse of the law. But according to Galatians 3:13, Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law. Therefore, I confess, I am redeemed from COVID 19, and I no longer have COVID 19.

Now, I remember thinking, do I really need to make that confession? I didn’t feel very good, because I was sick. But I thought, well, it’s not that difficult. I think I can do that. And so, I made that confession a fair amount of times over the next two days. And on that second evening I was pleasantly surprised to find that the fever had lifted. And I knew I was healed of the disease.

Now, was that just a coincidence, or did it happen because of the healing scriptures and the confession of faith? Make your own judgment, but I fully believe it was the latter.

But I have thought about it since then. Was the confession of faith necessary, and if so, why was it so important? And, as I thought about that, I believe the Lord showed me why. I discovered it as I looked at Romans 10:9-10.

Confess With Your Mouth

It said, if thou shalt confess with thy mouth . . . the Lord Jesus, or, that is, if you will confess His Lordship over your life, you shall be saved.

Is it enough to just believe that God raised Christ from the dead, in order to be saved? According to this passage, it is not enough to just believe. We must also confess with our mouth the Lord Jesus, that is, we must confess that we make Him our Lord.

And in many cases, this is done in front of other people, or witnesses. Remember, Jesus said, if you confess Me before men, I will confess you before My Father.

So, I began to think about it. Why do we confess with our mouth the Lord Jesus before men? Because it involves covenant. And covenant involves the words of two parties.

God, the first party to the covenant, offers us forgiveness of sin and eternal life through faith in Jesus Christ. We, the second party, can accept that offer or reject it. How do we accept God’s offer? With the words of our mouth. We confess with our words that we receive Jesus as the Lord of our life, and that we will live our lives His way.

And, by the way, how do we reject God’s offer of salvation through Christ? By remaining silent, by acquiescing, by staying quiet rather than responding.

And that’s how covenant works. Two parties have a meeting of the minds and the covenant is formed by the words of their mouths. That’s what a contract is. It is the recording of words that two parties have agreed to.

Often there is a third party, one who witnesses the agreement. By signing it, the witness is saying that I witnessed these two parties make this agreement. If one of them defaults later, I will be available to testify as to what I witnessed them agree to.

You see, words, the words of our mouth, what we say, have always, from the very beginning of time, been the basis for covenant. It is impossible to have covenant without the agreement of at least two parties.

This is an interesting point. The covenant of promise was made with Abraham, and the law of Moses, which came 430 years later, could not nullify it. The Old Covenant was a covenant of law, the law of Moses. But the New Covenant is a covenant of promise. What’s the difference between a law and a promise?

A law is something required of us to do, to adhere to, whether we agree with it or not, it’s the law. A promise is something given to us by promise, something promised to us. The promise was made to Abraham and his seed, which consists of those who are in Christ, the Seed. We can choose to receive it or not. It’s a promise, not a law.

And that’s how it is with the promises of God that we have in the scriptures. When we read them or hear them we are hearing the promise. We are hearing the offer made. When we confess it with our mouth, we are agreeing to it and with it, or laying claim to the promise. The promise was always there. But when we speak it with our mouths, when we agreed to it, we receive it by faith. It became ours. We have agreed to the promise and entered into the covenant.