James 5:16 tells us to “...confess your sins to one another and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.” I am concerned that this command is one of the least well-thought-out ones in scripture….especially for us who are minister’s wives!! Oh, don't get me wrong....not the prayer part--for sure we are good at that!! But what about the "confess" part? How often do we do that?
What? I am to confess MY sins to someone? Who? Why? What will they think?
Why? Because we have been told to do it. God knows we cannot fight many of the battles that stand in our way of Godliness and holiness alone and we are in desperate need of accountability and prayer and support. Because transparency is important to the Body of Christ.
Who? Someone who is Godly. Someone who will pray for you and hold you accountable. Someone who will encourage you as you turn from your sin. Someone who will help “bear your burden”.
There are some obvious cautions, however! Be VERY wise about who you confess your sins to!! You want to be sure it is someone who will not confess YOUR sins to anyone else!! Perhaps our husbands would be a good “one another” to confess to! Hummm….that brings up another interesting point—perhaps our pride is keeping us from confessing???
Note that James does not tell us to confess someone else’s sins to one another!! Sadly, I have been around many minister’s wives who:
A) Don’t confess their sins to anyone
B) Do confess other’s sins to one another
Ladies….I have much to confess, so I need to go and find a "one another!!
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2 comments:
I've often wished I had someone to confess to. The issues I've been dealing with lately are things I couldn't bring myself to talk to anyone about. I pray for God to put someone in my life I can trust and someone that would offer the right advice.
JoHanna....if you want to contact me at jgang@aeneas.net I'd love to talk to you.
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