Why We Need to Practice Confession

Why do we pray for healing or freedom and we don't seem to receive an answer?

James 5:16 has something to say that might help us answer this question:

"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."

I think this verse holds a key to why so many Christians today feel stuck with this question. Why we wrestle with this question. Why our prayers often seem to change nothing for us no matter how fervently and passionately we pray.

We like most of James 5:16 - where we're told to pray for each other and that our prayers can be powerful and effective. But, we miss the first part of the verse, or we see it as unimportant or unconnected to the rest.

Confession.

The part we'd rather skip in this verse. But, what if it's the important part?

The thing that makes the rest of this verse make sense.

There is something that happens when we confess our sins to each other and pray for each other about our sin.

Something is broken and something is released when we confess our sins to one another, that doesn't happen otherwise. That thing that was secret and in darkness is brought into the light and it loses power over us. This thing that we've now confessed, that was hindering our prayers, is now gone.

When we confess our sin, we're then able to step into a healing and a freedom we wouldn't have otherwise known. This impacts our prayers in a huge way. This is the prerequisite to our prayers being powerful and effective. When we start with confession of sin with others, it changes things in our prayer life.

Do you regularly practice confession in your life?

Wisdom from Heaven

What does wisdom from heaven look like?

Is it different from the wisdom of the world?

How is it different?


James 3:13-17 says:

"Who is wise and understanding among you? Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. But if you habour bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. Such 'wisdom' does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For when you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice.
But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere."

James is contrasting the wisdom of the world with wisdom from heaven. They look different from each other. They're complete opposites.

In verses 14-16, James describes the wisdom of the world. The words he uses to describe it are not at all flattering - earthly, unspiritual, demonic, full of envy and selfish ambition. Really the wisdom of the world is all about what's best for you,about getting ahead.

Contrast that with the wisdom from heaven. James writes that it is pure, peace-loving, submissive, considerate, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. That's what I want. It sound much better than the other.

I think the key difference is that wisdom that comes from heaven is for the good of all. Even if it's hard, it is about relationship and building each other up. Whereas the wisdom of the world is all about me - what works for me, what makes me feel good, no matter the cost to anyone else.

This leaves us with a few questions:

Am I pursuing the wisdom of the world, or the wisdom that comes from heaven?

Is there anything in my life interfering with my desire to pursue wisdom from heaven?

What would my life look like if I was pursuing wisdom from heaven?

A Doer of the Word, Not Just a Hearer

Is just reading the Word enough? Or is there more to it?

James 1:22-25 says:

"But be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. Because if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he's like someone looking at his face in a mirror. For he looks at himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of a person he was. But the one who looks intently into the perfect law of freedom and perseveres in it, and is not a forgetful hearer, but a doer who works - this person will be blessed in what he does." (CSB)

It's not just about reading the Bible to gain head knowledge. If that's all it becomes, we've missed the point of it all. It's not just about hearing what the Bible says. It's supposed to change our lives - the way we live.

I was really struck by the phrase "forgets what kind of person he was" when I read these verses from James recently. For me, it helped make the difference between hearing and doing clear.

When we hear the Word, we do look into a mirror and see the kind of person we are reflected back to us. Any time we open the Word of God we'll see things in our lives that are good and things that aren't that we need to deal with.

If we're just hearers of the Word, this is where it stops. We hear the Word, we see what it reveals in our lives, and then we walk away, quickly forgetting what we've heard. We heard what kind of a person we are, but didn't do anything in response to it.

On the other hand, the doer of the Word, goes beyond what they heard and what they saw about what kind of a person they are. They choose to do something with what they've heard.

When things are revealed, when they see things about the kind of person they are that don't line up with God's ways, they dig deeper to allow God to transform them. They allow the kind of person they are to be changed. As they look intently at God's Word, they find real freedom.

Lift Your Eyes

We all go through trials in life - times we wish we could avoid or escape from. But, we're told in Scripture to persevere in them and through them. We all see examples in Scripture of people who did exactly that.

James 1:12 says:

"Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love Him."

This is the reason why we endure in trial. We are looking forward to something that is coming. That is where our focus needs to be.

Remembering this lifts our eyes. When things get hard, our eyes often drop. We begin looking down - focusing on ourselves and our circumstances. This focus means everything gets overwhelming and we want o give up more than we want to persevere.

But, when we remember the crown of life promised by God, it lifts our eyes. Our circumstances don't change, but what we're looking at does. When we remember this, our eyes are lifted up and we see Jesus walking with us through our circumstances. This makes it possible to persevere - because we're seeing something beyond the current.

What Encouraging One Another Looks Like

"See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called 'Today', so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness." (Hebrews 3:12-13)

The writer of Hebrews is talking about part of what living in real community with one another looks like. We should be continually encouraging one another.

These words also talk about what the encouragement should look like. Yes, it is the positive, uplifting words we think of when we hear the word encouragement. We need that to keep going.

But, it also goes beyond that. The last of these verses talk about the idea of encouraging one another to deal with sin in our lives. This is encouragement to keep our hearts soft toward God.

I think this is the encouragement that's often missing in our lives. We need people who will encourage us to deal with what needs to be dealt with in our lives.

This kind of encouragement is often missing from our lives because it's more difficult to give and to receive. It has to come out of a relationship that has been built over time. And it needs to be carefully given. But, it's very necessary in our lives.

Who are you encouragers?

Do they have the ability to encourage you to deal with what needs to be dealt with in your life? Or, are they only allowed to say the positive, uplifting things?

Who are you an encourager for?

Do they allow you to encourage them to deal with what needs to be dealt with in their lives? Or, are you only allowed to say the positive, uplifting things?

Singleness & Sexuality

We live in a sexualized culture. There's no way of completely escaping it. The unfortunate thing is that some of this thinking has infiltrated the church. We've bought into our culture's thinking.

The truth is much of our struggle with conversations around singleness is that we believe in the lie of our culture. We don't talk about it. We've never admit that we have.

The lie we've bought? It's about about the importance of sex and experiencing it.

Christina S. Hitchcock puts it this way in her book, "The Significance of Singleness":

"At the heart of America's [and Canada's] fear of celibacy, a fear that American [and Canadian] evangelicals share with their secular counterparts, is the belief that if we do not engage in sexual activity, we're not really grown-ups; we may not even be fully human." (pg. 16)

When I first read that, my instinct was to disagree - as yours may be. But, I stopped to think about it for a bit and realized I ultimately couldn't disagree when I looked at the big picture of Western Christianity. Whether we're aware of it or not, we say things that point to how we think this way.

The truth is that, if we're going to live according to God's standards for sexuality, we have to be unafraid to stand apart from our culture. And that means we have to go beyond just talking about "saving" sex for marriage.

When we make comments about how getting married means someone has grown up or about sex being an adult activity we reveal how we've bought into our culture's beliefs. Even if we still believe sex should be only within marriage, we don't even realize that we equate it with being an adult.

The problem for single people is that, regardless of whether we get married one day or not, God made us sexual beings. That doesn't change just because someone is single past college-age. This doesn't mean we have to be controlled by it, but it does mean we still have to acknowledge and live with that part of us.

So, we have to learn to address it better. This is about holding the message of God's plan for sex and sexuality high.

As we create space for people who are single into their thirties, forties, fifties, and beyond in our discussions about this, we have to learn to change our responses to their expressions of struggle in this area. Being told once again that God calls it sin outside of marriage so we just have to not sin doesn't help. Neither does quoting 1 Corinthians 7:9 at us, which says that it's better to marry than to burn with passion. These responses minimize the struggle that is being expressed.

Rather than offer platitudes in response, we need to be okay with acknowledging the struggle. We cannot try to find the easy way out with this one.

What it looks like to live God's way doesn't change just because of your age or marital status. It is still God's plan for sex to be only in marriage. We are still called to sexual purity in all areas of our lives.

But, what also doesn't change is that singles still have the same sexual desires as those who are married. This means single people live ever day with no way to satisfy these desires from a human perspective and stay in God's design for sex. Some days this isn't even something that crosses our minds. And other days it's a much bigger struggle.

The hope to hold onto in this struggle is that others have lived this way. We're not the first people who have lived with this struggle and we won't be the last.

Sam Allberry reminds us of this:

"Jesus was not calling others to a standard he was not willing to embrace himself. He wasn't calling singles to sexual abstinence while knowing nothing of it himself. He lived this very teaching.
But there's even more that even that. Jesus is not just an example of a nonhypocritcal teacher. He is the example of the perfect man. He is the humanity all of us are called to be but which none of us are. He is the most complete and fully human person who ever lived. So his not being married is not incidental. It shows us that none of these things - marriage, romantic fulfillment, sexual experience - is intrinsic to being a full human being. The moment we say otherwise, the moment we claim a life of celibacy to be dehumanizing, we are implying that Jesus himself is only subhuman." ("7 Myths about Singleness", pg. 25)

Even in the struggles we have hope because we know it's possible. That doesn't mean it's easy. Just that it's possible.

We Can't Let Our Discomfort Keep up Quiet

Wading deeper into a topic I never thought I'd be wading into on this blog. It's not a topic we regularly talk about, but we need to.

In her book, "Party of One", Joy Beth Smith puts it this way:

"Out of fear or discomfort or shame, we in the church have relegated any discussion of sexuality to the act of marital sex." (pg. 84)

And I get that. I've hesitated to write this post for exactly the reasons above.

I've restarted it multiple times as I've tried to figure out what to say and how to say it. But, I know I can't end this series of posts without addressing this. It has a big impact on the lives of all in the church - whether married or single.

We live in a sexualized culture. It's everywhere we look. Really, it's almost impossible to avoid. And that is why we need to have these conversations.

"Our conversations and theology around sexuality have to become more nuanced. They have to encompass more than physical intimacy, and they have to allow for people who are single well into their thirties, forties, and fifties, whether by choice or by circumstances." (Joy Beth Smith, "Party of One", pg. 85)

The way we have limited the discussion on this has ignored a growing group of people in our churches. Whether we're married or single, we're sexual beings trying to navigate things according to God's plan in our highly sexualized culture. It's not easy for any of us, which is why we need to talk about it.

We can no longer pretend that there is only a short list of message about this that we need to communicate. It's not just "wait until you're married to have sex" and "don't have sex with anyone other than your spouse." Those are important biblical messages, but if we stop with them, we fall short.

Sometimes, I wonder if we stop there because many of the people responsible for communicating our messages on this have little or no experience with being single past the "normal age" for people to get married. It can be difficult to talk about this when it's something you have little experience to understand.

So, how do we fix this?

We need to create space where this conversation is okay to have. Where married and single people can share without judgement. Obviously, with appropriate boundaries, but still able to share personally.

How the Purity Message of my Youth Was Incomplete

"God created sex for marriage."
"Don't have sex before you're married."
"Lust and pornography are sin."
"You have to decide beforehand that you'll stay away from sin in this area of your life, because you need to know where you stand in this before you're tempted."

I'll be honest, this is never a topic I intended to write about. But, as I've wrestled with the topic of singleness and the church, I've realized this is a part of the discussion I cannot just avoid.

I grew up in the church in the era of the "True Love Waits" movement, complete with signing purity pledges and wearing purity rings. Much of the message of this movement was good and in line with what Scripture says.

I truly believe church and youth leaders got on board with it with the best of intentions. They wanted to encourage us to and help us to live a pure life, that we in line with Scripture.

But, the message was incomplete and there was an implication to the message that went largely unspoken.

The message was incomplete because it didn't address what it looks like to handle our sexuality from a biblical perspective. The message was almost exclusively about what not to do in this area - about the sin we needed to avoid. Looking back on this, I also understand why. This is a challenging topic to address in that setting. They were walking on a line of what parents would see as appropriate. So, while the message was incomplete, I don't fault my youth leaders for that.

I think it's the unspoken implication that was more damaging anyways. It's the one I've had just enough conversations with those who also grew up in this to see the pain it caused many of us, whether we're single or married today.

The implication of all of this was, if you didn't have sex before marriage then you would have great sex once you got married. While this was rarely spoken out loud this directly, it was implied in what was taught.

As a single person, the long-term result of believing this is spending many years feeling like I was missing out on something I deserved for signing the "true love waits" pledge card in high school and not having sex. If the reward for those things was supposed to be great sex in marriage, then I was definitely missing out as a single person.

As you can imagine, this had a negative affect on my relationship with God. It wasn't until I realized that this wasn't true and was not what Scripture said, that I was able to move beyond this. I had to come to a deeper and more complete understanding of what Scripture said about this.

This is again a confirmation of why we need to be studying the topic of singleness more closely in the church. We need to correct our misconceptions and misunderstandings of all of this.