Originally Published: 2020

“Living in ongoing confession and prayer and healing is a powerful part of walking together in the beauty of real community.”

Ray Ortlund

The day before it was announced in chapel that my classes at Cedarville University would be continued online due to the coronavirus, Pastor Ray Ortlund gave a message that I will not soon forget. In his message, he posed this question: “To whom do you confess your sins?”

My first reaction was to reply, “Well, God…I confess my sins to God.”

Then he asked another question that was as convicting as it was surprising: “If private confession is enough, then why is James 5:16 in the Bible?”

“Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.”

James 5:16

The truth is that although there is ONE mediator between God and man (and that is Christ), no one finds healing in isolation. And although God alone is our healer, he also created us for community. This idea of confessing our sins to one another is necessary if we are to cultivate a community in which brothers and sisters in Christ can spur one another on in their walk with Him.

Living in the Light

As believers, we are not only called to confess our sins to one another, but we are called to pray for each other and hold one another accountable when one of us falls into sin! A little later in chapter five, James says that “if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins” (5:19-20).

Now let me ask you this: How are we going to be able to bring our sisters in Christ back to the truth if we do not know their sins and struggles? In the same way, how can we expect them to hold us accountable and fight for us in prayer if they do not know the temptations we face?

We must confess our sins to one another and begin to live in the light. We cannot keep our sins in the dark and simultaneously live in true fellowship with Christ or the other believers in our lives. This is made very clear in 1 John 1:6-7 which says, “If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.”

All of us have something. All of us have that one thing that we find ourselves rationalizing and justifying when we know it is sin. Many of us have sin in our lives that we simply thought we would grow out of one day, or maybe that we could ignore until it disappears.

I know I do…

Then one day we wake up and realize that the sin we kept hidden in the dark, whether in an effort to wish it away or secretly entertain it, has not disappeared, but instead grown stronger.

We are tempted when we get carried away with our own sinful desires, and when entertained, those sinful desires become actions. Then, sin itself gives birth to death (James 1:14-15).

Choose to live in the light by first confessing your sins to God and then to one another.

It’s a Battle

We are at war… And until Christ returns and makes everything new, we will continue to be at war against sin. The good news is that you do not have to fight this battle alone. Though the devil “prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour,” resist him and remember that you have sisters in Christ who face the very same temptations you do each and every day!

So reach out to your Christian sisters and band together against the sin in your life! Find a woman you trust and confide in her. Commit to pray for each other daily! Dare to open up and confess your sins and temptations so that you may find healing.

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