james 5.16a (msg), make
this your common practice: confess your sins to each other and pray for each
other so that you can live together whole and healed.
we are a whole – physical, emotional, spiritual. when the SPIRITual is out of kilter it
affects your emotions. when your
emotions are out of kilter it affects your body. we talk about psychosomatic illnesses. they are real but they come from within
ourselves.
why isn’t everybody healed?
i don’t know. GOD has the power
but it isn’t his purpose in different situations. it is always in GOD’s power to heal but it is
not always in GOD’s purpose to heal. a
clear example of this is paul, in 1 corinthians. it said paul prayed three times for GOD to
heal a problem in his life but three times GOD said “no, I’ve got a better plan
for you, Paul.”
so what’s the condition for healing? confess.
we’d rather conceal and camouflage our sins, than confess them. it is a liberating experience to confess your
sins and get them out and share them, not just with the LORD but with each
other. revealing your feeling is the
beginning of healing.
many people come for counseling and begin by saying, “i’ve
never told this to anyone else in the world.”
once they say that, i know that something great is going to happen. i know what a relief it is to not carry a
burden anymore, to get it out and share it with somebody else so you can be
loved and accepted for who you are without having to pretend you’re perfect and
wear a mask.
“confess to each other” – does that mean i get up and confess
to the whole church? there is a
principle of the circle of confession.
only confess as widely as it involves other people.
if i’ve got a private sin, just
between me and the LORD, then i ought to just confess it to the LORD. if it’s a personal sin, between me and you,
then i need to come to you. if it’s a
public sin, then i need to apologize to the whole church. he says confess your sins, not broadcast
them. if it involves somebody else you
ought to go to somebody else. there ought
to be at least one person – husband, wife, pastor, friend – you have that you
can share everything with and know you’ll be loved and accepted
unconditionally.
just a thought from the front porch…
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