Sadly too often, prayer is our last resort, but my Friends, it should not be this way!
“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.” Jas 5:16 NIV
Pray for each other. One of the major reasons we confess to one another is so others can know how to pray for us. As I said yesterday, this requires humility. Again sadly too often, we pretend we are not struggling in life. But since we all still battle with sin, pretending nothing is wrong, only adds to the sin. That’s called lying, if you’re not sure. We all do this though, right? Someone says, “Hi. How are you doing?” And our instant go-to answer is, “Good,” when too often it is as far from good as it can get. But when we do not confess, how can others pray for us?
Again we cannot walk this journey alone, because we were never meant to walk it alone. We must humble ourselves and just speak honestly and vulnerably to one another. This does NOT mean we tell every single person we meet throughout our day about all our faults and flaws and problems! No. We need to find fellowship with brothers and/or sisters we can trust who will be committed to praying for us. This may take some time. This may take joining several groups until we feel safe, where what we share stays with that person or persons and is not food for gossip elsewhere. This requires trusting God to lead us to such a congregation…but when we do, oh how healing it can be!
Join me in memorizing 52 verses this year:
January: 1- Jn 3:16; 2- 2Co 5:17; 3- Jas 2:26; 4- Eph 2:10
February: 5- Jn 10:10; 6- Ro 6:23; 7- Rev 21:4; 8- Php 4:13
March: 9- 1Pe 5:7; 10- Jn 8:32; 11- Dt 30:19; 12- Jn 3:30; 13- 2Chron 20:3
April: 14- 2Chron 20:12; 15- 2Chron 20:15b; 16- 2Chron 20:17
May: 17- Ro 8:28; 18- 1Co 13:13; 19- Php 2:12; 20- Mt 5:4
June: 21- Lk 23:42; 22- Jas 4:7; 23- Pr 22:6; 24- Mt 5:3; 25- Jn 14:6
July: 26- Jas 2:19; 27- Dt 31:8; 28- Jn 14:15; 29- Jn 8:11
August: 30- Ro 8:1; 31- Pr 4:23; 32- Pr 18:21; 33- Ps 118:24; 34- 1Jn 4:4
September: 35- Mt 16:24; 36- Isa 53:6; 37- Ps 23:1-6
October: 38- Heb 4:12; 39- Jn 15:5
40- Jas 5:16
<>< Peace, Diane
