For this blog, I’ve created a bible study! Feel free to do it with your friends, family, and husbands/wives.
“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 ESV
“If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask, and God will give him life—to those who commit sins that do not lead to death. There is sin that leads to death; I do not say that one should pray for that.”
1 John 5:16 ESV
(Ignore the second half of this verse, it’s talking about praying for sins that a person will not repent for)
Here we have two verses that press us to expose our sins to each other. I think the biggest struggle is being vulnerable.
“Why should I say that out loud? I can handle it”
“They should know that I struggle with this”
“I’m just about to overcome this”
“This is embarrassing”
No matter your reasoning, the Lord calls us to a higher reasoning.
I don’t don’t know ALL of his reasoning, but personally, from my perspective on scripture, I would go to say this:
If we do not count sin for what it is, a humbling part of life and only sin, then we begin to identify with it.
Do not tuck away your sin inside yourself because it’s painful or scary to talk about. Don’t lie and say that it’s a part of yourself that you are revealing. It’s just sin, it’s not you, and that’s what we live in together. Saints in sin. We are not sinners pretending to be saints.
With this in mind, have mercy when others reveal their sin to you.
“Only let us hold true to what we have attained.”
Philippians 3:16 ESV
We have attained the gift of salvation, and together we are partakers in grace of God, and have earned NOTHING.
“It is right for me to feel this way about you all, because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel.”
Philippians 1:7 ESV
With that in mind:
- What sins dominate your life, and do you know where they root from?
The next part of this Major verse says:
“and pray for one another, that you may be healed.” -James 5:16
So the next part of our action should be praying for the person who is in sin.
Bring them scripture, truth, encouragement, or testimony, but do not downplay the power of a sin just because you have overcome it or don’t understand it, for you know that you have the same struggle in another area.
“Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins.”
Ecclesiastes 7:20 ESV
- What truth can you find together for each other that will encourage each other, and give you biblical power to overcome?
The last part of this verse says:
“The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.”
-James 5:16
What makes us righteous? Faith in God alone, and faith in God means faith in his word.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
John 1:1 ESV
So have faith every promise that you’ve read including the first verse in this bible study. That the Lord will bring healing, and you are forgiven through his light.
Draw on the power of the Lord together because in it you find strength, not through bodily attempts.
- How can you better adjust your walk to find truth in the area that you are lacking? How can you live in that truth instead of only knowing it?
“For we are not, like so many, peddlers of God’s word, but as men of sincerity, as commissioned by God, in the sight of God we speak in Christ.”
2 Corinthians 2:17 ESV
“But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing. If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.”
James 1:22-27 ESV
