Week 21: Day 3

Intro: Welcome back to Orbit. My name is Joe, it’s so good to have you here today. We are journeying through the book of James and I’m so glad you could join me today as we move into chapter 5. My question to start today is: do you have someone in your life who you can be honest with about your life and who can pray and journey with you? Let’s read!

Bible: Let’s read from James 5, starting at verse 13:

Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise. Is anyone among you ill? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. 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.

Thoughts: We are going to be looking into verse 16 today, where James says “therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.”.

Confession is something we call spiritual disciplines – these are practices that can help us follow Jesus more fully and help us live life to the full. Confession is definitely one of those things and I think that’s why James is highlighting it.

Confession may be something that you have heard of – or you might not have! But as humans, we can often carry around shame with us. We can carry around lies about ourselves. Shame can weigh us down, can destruct us. You might have experienced this. We have to try and deal with these issues. At the heart of God is the desire to give and to forgive. It’s who God is. His desire is to give freedom.

So what James is saying is that as followers of Jesus, we can confess our sins to God and we will be healed. We can take our brokenness and our shame into his presence.

Earlier in this chapter in verse 11, James says, “The Lord is full of compassion and mercy”. God longs to share his compassion and mercy with us. To bring us freedom. We can give him our rubbish. We can bring the worst and the best of us to God. We can come to the one who is love, who longs to release us from our guilt and secret shame. We can bring the worst things into his presence – and we discover that he is not fazed. He loves us. He wants to bring us healing and freedom.

I think another important element of this passage is that James says to confess our sins with each other and pray for each other so that we may be healed. One of the reasons why James highlights this is that the Christian journey is one that must be shared. There’s no such thing as individual Christianity. We were made to be family, brothers and sisters. We have to accept that we are a fellowship of sinners, who are all in this together, and who are all just as good or bad as one another. This puts us on a level playing field and leaves us no room for judgement. It opens us up to other people. We are most susceptible to living in secret shame when we don’t share it. I know for me, when I have shared things with other people who are followers of Jesus, has really brought me freedom.

So back to my question from the start – do you have someone in your life who you can be honest with about your life and who can pray and journey with you? I’m not talking about lots of people, but just one or two, who you can be accountable with, who will pray with you. Maybe this is your youth worker, or a friend, or a mentor in your church – but I encourage you to find that person, ask them, and be vulnerable and open with them.

Prayer: I thank you God that you are full of compassion and mercy and you are eager to hear our confessions. I thank you that we can give your our sins and the stuff we have done wrong and that you aren’t fazed. Lord, I pray that you would help us to become more like you and that the spiritual practice of confession would draw us closer to you and those around us. Amen.

Silence: And now a few moments of silence for you to pray, reflect on these ideas, or simply sit and be still.

Action: If you haven’t got this person already, find someone who you know and trust and ask them to pray with you. Why not take a step of vulnerability today.

Outro: That's it for today's Orbit. Thanks so much for joining us - we'll be back with another reflection tomorrow where will be delving into our final day in James.