Bible Verse of the Day Saturday December 12th 2020

James 5:15-16 And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. 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.

No matter which one of God’s Children provides the prayer, God will hear the prayer offered in faith. In this verse, “make the sick person well” refers to physical and spiritual illness. The connection phrase here is faith, we must believe that God will hear our prayers and answer them, in His way and time. There is a connection between the two, physical and spiritual illness.  Sometimes a spiritual illness, some unforgiven sin that one has lived with for an extended period can cause stress and anxiety, which will lead to more serious illness. There is nowhere in the Bible where God says that all physical illness is a direct consequence of unforgiven sin. However, our spiritual defeat is directly caused by a prolonged and lingering personal unforgiven sin. 

The Phrase “the Lord will raise them up” seems to point to the verification that James is speaking of both spiritual and physical illness here. This is also speaking to the fact that it is the Lord that will raise the person up, not the person offering the prayer. God does this by valuing and recognizing this bible based prayer, by raising the person up from a despairing and despondent condition (Psalms 32:5; Proverbs 28:13; 1 John 1:9). 

Confession of sin to other brothers and sisters in Christ is sometimes critical because sin will have us isolated from others. This confession of sin need not be confessed to anyone particularly, like a pastor, but confessed to one another. Confession of sin is a good thing, but it must be done with discretion, an unwise confession of sin can be an ill-advised decision, and possibly cause more sin. Maybe there is someone that you might feel awfully close to and have great trust in, this person would be someone to confess your sin too. If your sin was against someone or a group of people, then you should confess it to that one or that group.

We will see great things when we pray for one another, as a community of believers. We have the freedom through Christ Jesus to keep our lives undercover, and not to share what we might be going through with our Christian brothers and sisters. However, when we communicate and disclose our illness, worries, anxieties, fears, dreams and our sin with other followers and believers in Christ Jesus, it could very well become a decisive and enabling moment for God to intervene in our situations. Bring whatever matters and concerns forward to others for prayer and watch as God performs a miracle.   

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