Confess or Cover

Sometimes we have to ask God to forgive us as well as forgiving those who have sinned against us. We need to clear our conscience before God. Paul said that he had avoided offending God or men and sometimes we need to ask somebody for forgiveness, if we know we have offended them. You may need to ask your parents to forgive you or a friend to forgive you for your unkind words.

Jesus said if you come to the altar and you know someone has something against you should leave the altar and put things right with that person before you carry on to worship. That doesn’t mean we go and confess our sin to our parents, wife or a person we are secretly jealous at unless they know of our sin. We don’t tell people that you have something against them for the last 10 years if they didn’t have a clue. That just creates more problems.
Friend, a principle to live by is: as many people who were offended or know of the sin needs to know of your repentance and be asked for their forgiveness; nobody else needs to be involved.