Of course you do. We all do. Many years ago I read an advice column wherein the writer was wrestling with some twenty year old sin he had committed. He was considering confessing to his wife what he had done, until Abby or Ann argued otherwise. She said that confessing would only add hardship to the one confessed to, that it was in fact a selfish move by the man to unburden. I got her point, and in fact bought her point at the time. Not so now.
When we wrong someone we have an obligation to seek the forgiveness of that person. Not necessarily to secure it, but to seek it. That can’t be done if we keep our wrongdoing a secret. By all means we must confess to our heavenly Father for everything we do wrong to anyone bearing His image we do wrong to Him. And failing to seek the forgiveness of that image bearer is akin to failing to seek forgiveness from Him.
Abby’s or Ann’s calculus was profoundly pragmatic. And as always happens when we do such calculus, she got it wrong. We don’t decide what to say on the basis of what we think will happen, but on the basis of what God says. He says in James 5:6 that we are to confess our sins to one another. This isn’t a call for the Roman confessional. This isn’t even a call to accountability groups. It’s a call to confess to those we have wronged.
Neither, however, is this a call to confess to all those who believe they have been wronged. While we ought to be swift to confess, and not feel the need to calculate our exact level of guilt before confessing, we ought not feel the need to repent to those we haven’t wronged. There is this notion out there that when people face the public that they not only have a responsibility to publicly repent of private sins but have the responsibility to do it over and over with each new person they “meet” in public.
Several of my sins are widely known within the evangelical church. They were real sins for which I needed to repent. I repented to my family, my church, my co-workers and openly acknowledged my sins before the public. I didn’t, however, seek the forgiveness of the “public” as I did not sin against them. That doesn’t, sadly, keep many from taking up an offense against me, from publicly accusing me of not being repentant, from throwing what I’ve already been forgiven of in my face. For that they need to publicly repent and privately to me as well.
The great thing about repentance on the horizontal plane is that it creates opportunity for forgiveness on the horizontal plane. Such blesses both the forgiving and the forgiven, and brings glory to the God who specializes in forgiveness. Confession doesn’t make you guilty again. Neither does it do away with your sin. Jesus did that, which is why we can know that if we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (James 1:9).