Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results. James 5:16
When something harmful is removed from our bodies, healing happens. The same is true for our souls.
The story is told of a young woman who was new to following Jesus. She didn’t realize it yet, that while Christians agreed in principle that sins need to be confessed, it rarely ever happened outside of silent prayer.
This young woman surprised her pastor one day by showing up at his office with a list of sins that she hadn’t wanted anyone to know about. But after reading in her Bible, “Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed,” (James 5:16) she made an appointment with her pastor.
Upon arrival, “She recited her long and detailed list. The pastor realized that he was hearing something all too rare in the church today. When the young woman came to the end of the litany of her sins, the pastor took her list from her and tore it to pieces, saying, “‘The blood of Christ has cleansed you of all your sin.’ Then … he said something that demonstrated he understood her sin from his own personal experience. He said, ‘Pray for me, a fellow sinner.’“[1]
In a children’s book, little Arlo draws on his bedroom walls, then crawls under his bed when he realizes he can’t hide what he’s done. Later, after being led through confession by his mom (who cleans off the walls), Arlo says, “Thank you for cleaning up my mess!” “You’re welcome,” says his mom, “Cleaned up is always much, much better than covered up!”[2] Jesus waits today to clean up all who come to Him for forgiveness. Because “cleaned up is always much, much better than covered up.”
[1] Archer, Gleason. “The Pain and Beauty of Confession.” Ligonier Ministries, 1 Mar. 2005, https://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/pain-and-beauty-confession.
[2] Howard, Betsy Childs. Arlo and the Great Big Cover-Up. YouTube, 30 June 2020, https://youtu.be/W56CXRxC3OE. Accessed 1 Aug. 2022.
