2 different situations, same solution.
1) Presalvation sin. Repentance and confession.
We turn back to God from sin and face Him (repentance, change of thinking). We then confess all known and unknown sins to Him through faith in what Christ did on the Cross (through faith in Christ). Results in His Forgiveness of our presalvation sins and He then is free in His Perfect Holiness to impute Perfect Righteousness to us. Regenerates our human spirit and we are in fellowship with Him, as a new man (Body, Soul, And Spirit).
If we later sin,...known or unknown, we fall out of fellowship with Him.
2) Postsalvation sin. Again, Repentance and confession.
We face back to Him, He is now the object of our thinking in what He performed on the Cross. We confess our postsalvation sins to Him (not a new salvation, but simply a washing of those areas needing cleansing.) He is sure and just to forgive us those sins (1stJn 1:9)
This simply places us back in fellowship.
We still need to walk in fellowship with Him.
We are still made for a purpose by His Plan.
To perform according to His Plan, we need to continue in fellowship with Him.
To understand His Plan, we study His Word. The more we breath in of His Word and remain in fellowship, the more He is able to sanctify us, cleaning up our soul, our mind, our memory, our thinking, our problem solving techniques, so we respond to situations by His Plan, instead of reacting by our old sin nature scarred in our souls from past wrong thinking.
Thanks Cvengr. I think you have the same problem here though:
>>We confess our postsalvation sins to Him (not a new salvation, but simply a washing of those areas needing cleansing.) He is sure and just to forgive us those sins (1stJn 1:9)
And if you do not confess them, He does not “forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”