Confessing, repenting and asking forgiveness of God (1 John 1:9) is only one step on the road to freedom. At the root of mine, and many Christians’ captivity is SHAME. Shame continues to have a hold over you if you have never made public the sin that was committed. Satan thrives in darkness. For true and full liberty, everything done in darkness must be revealed into the light (Dan. 2:22; Mk. 4:22; Lk. 1:79, 8:17). This brings me to the importance of the scripture in James 5:16. Confession and repentance to God is for forgiveness and cleansing unto righteousness. But the confession to others who we can see is for healing and deliverance from the spirit of shame that still holds us captive. You can be righteous and still be bound.

The test of still being captive to shame is the ongoing inability to bring yourself to the place where you can bring what was done in secret into the light. That is when the bondage of shame is broken and you come into full liberty – nothing lacking, nothing missing. We resist the enemy when we reveal his dark acts and recognize that it is sin that caused us to do what we did – sin ruling in our mortal bodies; we were slaves to sin (Rom. 6:6, 12). But sin shall not have dominion over us for we are under grace (the influence of God within us to overcome sin). We cannot allow sin to define us. Sin is separate from us (Rom. 7:17). We cast sin from us by revealing it into the light that it can no longer prosper or have dominion. The enemy must come and find nothing of him in us (John 14:30). No foothold or open door to give him legal authority to continue to oppress us.

There should be no problem revealing hidden sin if we really believe God has forgiven us and it is covered under the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ. It shouldn’t even matter if others repeat our hidden sins because shame no longer has dominion over us. Remember the one to who you reveal your hidden sins is not perfect either (Rom. 3:10). Let him who has no sin cast the first stone (John 8:7). Part of the problem in the Body of Christ is that many Christians do not believe they can freely express hidden sins to other Christians for fear of being judged. The desire of God for His church is that the law of liberty would be at work among us so that we can be totally transparent without fear of judgment or condemnation (Rom. 14: 10, 13). In fact, those who take it upon themselves to hear a confession and then judge are brought into judgment themselves by God. He  holds them accountable. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God (Heb. 10:31).

My road to total freedom came as I allowed the Holy Spirit to shine his torch light into the deep recesses of my soul. Many past sins that I had committed, both prior to and after becoming a Christian, even from childhood, came flooding into my consciousness. These were things I had never revealed to another living soul. The Holy Spirit directed me to start by writing them down in my journal. I tried to justify why I should write them on a piece of paper then I could just throw it away after the process was finished but the Lord showed me this was part of the shame wanting to stay hidden. I must admit a tremendous struggle took place inside of me as I prepared to write down all of my hidden sins. This was further proof to me of the power that shame had over me that I hadn’t really accepted or acknowledged before. It is easy to live in self-denial when things remain hidden, to live a life behind a mask and think that because we have confessed it to the Lord that’s the end of it. Now, I understand the purpose of these support groups where you have to stand up and state things openly about yourself – it is a part of the healing process. Satan is an ‘accuser of the brethren’ and I cannot be in deliverance ministry while fearing that he will reveal my secret sins to others. He has no power over me if I have already revealed them and I am no longer a slave to shame. We have to come to that place where we must be of no reputation – get rid of the fear of what others think of us – it is a snare of the enemy. This is part of the reason why the Body of Christ continues to be crippled and is unable to manifest the ‘greater works’ that Jesus said we should be doing (John 14:12).

I am part of a newly formed deliverance ministry team. The Lord showed me that if we are going to be able to operate with the maximum power and authority that will be required to fight against the strong demonic forces of darkness he would be leading us to overthrow we would have to bring to light all of our hidden sins. I knew it would have to start with me. I shared with the team what the Lord had revealed to me about the bondage of shame and then proceeded to read everything I had written in my journal. I felt humiliated, embarrassed, ashamed as I brought my hidden sins into the light before a dozen women. But by the time I had finished I felt a burden lift off me. I felt light and free. Others took the plunge and began to share things that had remained in darkness for decades and experienced the same lifting of the burden of shame that I had received. We ministered one to the other following through with the effectual fervent prayer of the righteous for each other. The following day, the Lord showed me that the hearts and spirits of the women on this ministry team were being knit together in a supernatural way that has given us a heart and compassion for each other that makes us want to fervently fight for each other and our families. There is a greater trust that has been born out of our sharing that will be needed as we go into the battle field together. We must know who has our backs. This is the Lord’s work and it is marvellous in our eyes.

This is what the Lord wants for the wider Body of Christ. The process begins with you. Do not allow shame to rule over you, bring everything out of darkness into the light and come into your freedom today.

till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; (Eph. 4:13)

Shalom.