James 5:16. Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, and then you will be healed. Ever since Adam and Eve first donned the fig leaves in the garden, we humans have been busy bluffing each other about how wonderfully adequate and whole we are, while hoping that no one will discover how much guilt and how many naked fears lie just below the surface. We are afraid that if we honestly admit that we are having real trouble maintaining our devotional life our friends will have doubts about our integrity. As parents, we dont want to talk about our stress points lest our image as the adequate father or mother be tarnished. We all know the tendency of the human mind, once it has started on the path of hiding the truth, to hide our needs even from our own selves. But a problem that doesnt get acknowledged will not be healed. James certainly understood this when he urged the early believers to form the habit of freely admitting their failings to one another. He wanted that young expression of the body of Christ to become practiced in open honesty and trust. James was not, however, advocating some kind of lets bare all encounter sessions. He urged that whatever failings we might admit to one another be made an immediate subject of prayer. He anticipated that the combination of honesty and supplication would lead promptly to spiritual, emotional, and physical healing. The church, then, could conduct thrilling experiments in the kinds of healing candor and caring that our heavenly Father longs to share with us. By nurturing each other to strength rather than condemning each others weakness, we reflect Gods character. We need each other to reveal Gods love in a tangible way.
Posted on: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 16:27:34 +0000
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