Confession

             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. (James 5:15)

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. (I John 1:9)

Oooo… Shows like Maury Povich, and memoires are popular because we like to hear all the salacious details as some confesses their sins. And making it a competition can be exciting. But oh… the idea of telling someone, anyone, or everyone that we have done something, have something, or are something for which they would be justified to reject or condemn us… that’s hard.

However, have you ever spent time trying to keep a secret? Trying to hide or pretend that everything is fine when it’s not? One of the ways sin traps a person is by making the person ashamed or afraid to admit it has power. This is the reason people in AA begin with, “My name is ________, and I’m an alcoholic.” Naming your sin reduces its power. Naming it before others allows you to be accountable to those people and to be encouraged by them, which can help you overcome them.

That leads me to the second part of the verse. The prayer of a righteous person… What does that mean? God is righteous because He’s never sinned. The rest of us are unrighteous because we’ve sinned. The second passage says that God will cleanse us from all unrighteousness when we confess our sins. At that point, we become righteous. But how? Is it some sort of “magical” cancellation of the sin? Or could it be we are made righteous because when we confess the sin as a sin, we are agreeing with God about it? We may not yet see our sins in the same way God does, but if we confess it as a sin, we’re at least momentarily on God’s side. At that moment, we are righteous, and our prayers have greater power as a result.