“Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.” James 5:16
Two important things are stated in this verse. First is confession. There are some that believe in confession to another person and that person will bring about forgiveness. This passage does not show this is the case. Only Jesus can forgive sins. Here the confession is to be able to go before God with a clean heart in order to receive healing.
Praying together with another person will strengthen your heart and keep you close to God. The confession will also help you stay on focus for God. Being alone can allow you to be easily distracted. Working together can help prevent that. It can help you to confess the sins you have done to God and receive His forgiveness.
The second point in this verse is about the prayer of a righteous man. No man is righteous in and of himself. No matter how good you are or what you have done you will never be righteous in yourself. Once a person has sinned once, he is a sinner forever unless God has forgiven and cleansed Him through Jesus.
Each person is only righteous only when He takes on the righteousness of Jesus. You are to cloth yourself with His righteousness. The righteousness of Jesus is the holiness and perfection of God. He will impart all of this to you. His blood will get rid of all the sin in your life.
When you are in the righteousness of Jesus your prayers will be very powerful and effective. Look at the prayers of Jesus, every one was answered and they were all very powerful. This was because He was in God perfectly and only did His will and only sought the will of God. The prayers of Jesus is always the will of God, thus always answered.
Today confess all of yours sins. Pray with one another. Put on the righteousness of Jesus. Pray all the time the will of God. Be careful not to pray in selfishness. Your prayers done in this manner will be powerful and effective because you will be praying as Jesus is praying.
I pray that today God will help you to confess all your sins; that God will help you to put on the righteousness of Jesus; that you will walk in the righteousness of Jesus; that you will pray in the will of God in all of your prayers; and that your prayers will be powerful and effective.
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