Most read Bible verses---#54---James 5:16

James 5:16 (Message)

Make this your common practice:  Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you can live together whole and healed. 

I don’t think that this verse is practiced much at all in the Christian community.  I don’t think small groups, even those who have been meeting together for years, confess sins to one another.  We pray for one another, but we don’t confess our sins to one another.  Very few married couples confess their sins to one another.  Only when the sin becomes so big and/or so public will a person confess his sins to others.  This not what Scripture teaches. 

You are to acknowledge your sin to others.  Not all sins to others, just sin(s) that you have committed against another.  It is not sufficient to confess your sins to God and not to another that you know you have wronged.  Jesus taught this principle in Matthew 5:21-24.  You first must confess and be reconciled with the person(s) you have wronged, then you can confess and make your offering to God.  Humility before God is not complete unless there is also humility before man. A true test of your willingness to humble yourself is being willing to share with others the weaknesses you confess to God.

It’s one thing to confess certain sins that might be relatively easy to confess to others---bad temper, profanity, impatience, forgetfulness, ignorance, jealousy, etc.  It’s a far more difficult thing to confess sins like lying, cheating, deceit, slander immorality, and the like to others.  Indeed, it takes the humility of Christ to confess the more serious sins to those you have harmed by those sins.  Humility takes enormous amounts of courage, self-confidence and personal security.  People who need to confess sin against others likely lack these strengths.  And so the vicious cycle continues. 

Perhaps the most important application of this teaching lies in the context of family life.  Confessing your sins to each other and praying for each other will result in living together whole and healed.  A father who confesses to his children that he has been wrong to them.  A son or daughter who confesses that he or she has been lying to his/her parents.  A husband or wife who confesses an affair before being caught.  These or many other examples of confessing wrongs to others you have wronged, then asking for forgiveness from others and the Lord, will result, according to this passage, with the family being whole and healed again. 

If there is something in this devotional that speaks to you, please react positively to it.  Ask the Lord for humility to confess your specific sin(s) to those you have hurt and expect the healing process to begin.