Do you have to confess your sins IN ORDER to be forgiven?

Do you believe this?

Confess each sin in order to be forgiven. Confess each sin in order to be forgiven. Notice the words in order to be.

If you truly believe this, then what you are saying is your forgiveness of sins is based on your confession of sins.

But what does the Bible say forgiveness of sins is based on?

Ephesians 1:7: "In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace"

So not according to the confession of our sins, but according to the riches of His grace. The day you can measure the riches of His grace is the day you'll realize how much you've been forgiven.

Also notice how forgiveness of sins is something we already have, not something we are trying to get.

What is the fruit of knowing you are forgiven much? Jesus says in Luke 7 that the woman who poured oil on his feet knows she was forgiven much, so she will love much. The reason why we love little is because we think we are only forgiven little, only up until the very next sin we commit (like the Pharisee in the above story).

It is no longer like the Old Covenant, where we went from clean (righteous), dirty (unrighteous), clean, dirty, clean, dirty. No, today in the New Covenant we are always clean. The blood of Jesus keeps on cleansing you from any and every sin 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It's nearly-too-good-to-be-true!

If you want to confess your sins to God, you are free to. I just want to ask if there is a better way of relating to God, or is that way an Old Covenant approach to God and is the New Covenant a lot better than that? If it makes you feel better to confess your sins to God, if it reminds you that you're forgiven and how good He is, then you're free to do it. But don't do it out of a begging, pleading mode for Him to forgive you and make you clean again. I believe that is an insult to Jesus' sacrifice, because it's saying that the shedding of His blood alone was not enough for the forgiveness of sins.