When your people turn, praise your name, pray, and plead with you in this temple, then hear them in heaven, forgive the sins of your people Israel, and bring them back to the land that you gave to them and their ancestors.
2 Chronicles 6:24–25
To understand how much God hates your sin, you only have to look as far as the cross. Everything in you that is selfish, envious, bitter, resentful, or angry—everything in you that is not part of the character of God—is what put Christ on that cross.
When you confess your sin every day, you agree with God that a lot of you is broken and at odds with godliness and so you honor the cross. But when you forget or skip over that very crucial part of each day, you start to take Christ’s death for granted and so dishonor the cross. If you stop becoming aware of the ugliness of sin and start to ignore it, or worse yet, accept it, you start a steady downhill slide that will take you farther and farther from God. When you think you are forgiven just because God loves you and you forget the bloody cross of his Son, you are acting like that very cross was unnecessary. It’s important to really understand that it isn’t simply God’s love for you but Christ’s death and your acceptance of that sacrifice that saves you. Don’t let yourself get so comfortable with your sin, which was his death sentence, that you can’t see it anymore. Agree with God every day about your sinfulness. Confess everything that doesn’t come from him and agree that it’s what sent his Son to the cross. God promises that when his people turn away from sin and pray to him in repentance that he will listen. When you do that, you will also find that your relationship with God grows in depth and power and peace. Confession is good for the soul.