16 So then, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, so that you will be healed. The prayer of a good person has a powerful effect.
17 Elijah was the same kind of person as we are. He prayed earnestly that there would be no rain, and no rain fell on the land for three and a half years.
18 Once again he prayed, and the sky poured out its rain and the earth produced its crops.
V. 16 - “So then, confess your sins to one another ” - Continuing on from the previous paragraph in which we are urged to share our needs openly with fellow believers: James had just said that when we pray for one another, bodies can be healed, sins can be forgiven. He goes further than sharing our ailments with other Christians.
Share your spiritual burdens, sins, with other Christians. This is amazing! Do I really want to tell anyone my sins, my failings? What will they think of me? Will they shun me? Many of us have trouble confessing to the Lord - even though He already knows, being omniscient! Amazingly, I think 'Yes' that is what we are to do - confess to another believer. This does not mean stand up in church and tell all. Have someone who can be a confidant, someone with whom you have established a relatlionship. Get alone, pray and share you plight. Have that person pray with and for you. Keep it private, just between you and the other. You can easily convince yourself that what you did isn't all that bad, and maybe you don't need to confess. Confessing out loud moves it from conjecture to the reality of facing your failings.
James is saying that confessing your sins to other Christians will bring about cleansing. I do not believe that the Christians have anything to do with bringing about the forgiveness - that comes from the Lord, and only the Lord. Confessing your sins is agreeing with the Lord that you have wronged Him, that you need forgiveness. It is not just admitting you have sinned (although that is a significant part of confession). If you will not admit you have done wrong, then you will not seek forgiveness from the Lord. Your stubborn, sinful self stands in the way of the spiritual healing we all desperately need.
James is also speaking about Christians getting along with other Christians. Anger and bitterness can destroy the unity of the church. If you have offended someone; go, confess and ask for forgiveness. If someone has offended you, forgive them. That can 'cleanse' the bad feelings that can destroy a church.
A sermon heard recently emphasized the ‘speaking out’ as a means of ‘releasing’ the issue. I think this aspect ties in closely to Rom 10:9, 10; “that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.” We see that speaking about the issue, whether it is confessing a sin or confessing that you believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, that act shows you have made a decision. You have announced it to the world, and have made the commitment to go through with your decision.
“pray for one another, so that you will be healed” - What are the truths about prayer emphasized here? Accountability - we are not ‘accountable’ to fellow Christians (our behavior may have a positive or negative effect on Christians around us - but we answer to Christ alone). Speaking about your sin brings it out into the open, you cannot deny you said it or did it. This is similar to confessing Christ as Lord and Savior. Saying it cements it in your heart and mind. See: “If you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. One believes with the heart, resulting in righteousness, and one confesses with the mouth, resulting in salvation.” (Rom 10:9-10)
Confession leads to cleansing by the Lord. See also: 1 John 1:8, 9 - “If we say, ‘We have no sin,’ we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say, ‘We have not sinned,’ we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.”
“The prayer of a good person has a powerful effect.” - Being supported in our prayers for healing - physical and spiritual - by another believer buoys us up. Knowing that we are supported by Christians around us, gives us some confidence when we come to the Lord. We know, or at least should know, that when we pray he hears us. See: “This is the confidence we have before him: If we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears whatever we ask, we know that we have what we have asked of him.” (1 John 5:14-15) But on the other hand, if there is a cloud of witnesses praying with us, isn’t that a plus? (No. I do not think that God will hear a crowd praying over, or before, a single voice lifted to Him. He hears all of our prayers.) However, having other Christians praying with us, echoing our pleas, helps us to think we are on the right track with our requests. When others pray with us we can feel that we are not alone, and be encouraged.
V. 17-18 - “Elijah was the same kind of person as we are.” - The King James Version translates this to read "like passions as we..." Elijah is given as an example to de-mystify him (i.e., if he can do it, so can you!) We often elevate the prophets, like Elijah, Isaiah, or Jeremiah, putting them on ‘pedestals’, thinking we could never be heard by God as those prophets were heard.
What are the truths about prayer emphasized here? Believe in God, believe also in Jesus Christ. (See also: John 14:1) It does not take massive faith in Jesus to seek Him to work in and for you. See also Matt. 17:19, 20 “Then the disciples came to Jesus privately, and said, Why were we not able to send it out? And he says to them, Because of your little faith: for truly I say to you, If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, Be moved from this place to that; and it will be moved; and nothing will be impossible to you.” Requiring a 'massive' faith before you do anything for the Lord is closely related to requiring works to make you 'good enough' for Jesus to want to save you. That line of thinking is a form of heresy in which we can be good and God will then find us acceptable - which flies in the face of Rom 5:8.
As mentioned earlier in comments on James chapter 4: Motivation is the key. Prayer is not magic: i.e., You ask, therefore, you get. James is teaching us that we are to focus our prayers on Christ and what He has planned for us. When we are attuned to His plans, our prayers will be asked according to His will, not our selfish desires. He is not saying personal prayers are wrong, just personal prayers for self pleasure, wealth
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