James 5.16
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.
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Sometimes I’m not sure what is more challenging: forgiving others who have sinned against me or asking forgiveness from those I have sinned against. The fact that I don’t know which is more challenging even reveals the problem of pride and entitlement that I often battle!
Confession and repentance towards the Lord is often hard enough when we know we must utter certain words that bring us shame, embarrassment, or humbling. But when we realize we need to confess and ask forgiveness from others, that can be even harder. My pride, self-righteousness, and my desire to not be proven wrong keeps me from going in humility to others.
One of my biggest roadblocks occurs when there is mutual hurt between myself and others. I can easily justify my decisions or behaviors, and even my sinful behavior, if my poor choices were made (in my opinion) in response to someone else’s hurtfulness towards me. This is just another instance of me wanting to be judge and jury; I think to myself, like a 7 year old, “well they started it!” But the Gospel gives me no room for that immature nonsense.
If Christ laid down His life for me and took my sin upon Him, even though “I started it,” how much more should I be willing (and even consider it a privilege) to be able to go to someone else and ask for forgiveness even if they were the ones to “start it”?
Jesus’ love and mercy towards me reminds me that regardless of the situation, sin is sin; I am not responsible for how others have treated me, but only how I have responded to them. Jesus did not retaliate or fight back, and the transforming work of the Gospel in my heart gives me both the motivation and the power to do the same.
The cause for
my heart struggle
is not the people
or situations in my life,
but the “heart” I bring
to those relationships
and circumstances.
I must take ownership of my sin, and when I confess my sin to others, especially those I have wronged, the newness of walking in the light truly brings healing. That guilt of sin doesn’t hang over me like a dark cloud, but I walk with a lightness and freedom as I’ve unloaded the burden off my back of carrying around the shame of sin.
Read Again Out Loud and Make it into a Prayer:
James 5.16
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Personalize and Read or Pray Aloud:
Psalm 38.1–22
1 O Lord, rebuke me not in your anger,
nor discipline me in wrath!
2 For your arrows have sunk into me,
and your hand has come down on me.
3 There is no soundness in my flesh
because of your indignation;
there is no health in my bones
because of my sin.
4 For my iniquities have gone over my head;
like a heavy burden,
they are too heavy for me.
5 My wounds stink and fester
because of my foolishness,
6 I am utterly bowed down and prostrate;
all the day I go about mourning.
7 For my sides are filled with burning,
and there is no soundness in my flesh.
8 I am feeble and crushed;
I groan from the tumult of my heart.
9 O Lord, all my longing is before you;
my sighing is not hidden from you.
10 My heart throbs; my strength fails me,
and the light of my eyes—
it also has gone from me.
11 My friends and companions
stand aloof from my plague,
and my nearest kin stand far off.
…………………………………………….
21 Do not forsake me, O Lord!
O my God, be not far from me!
22 Make haste to help me,
O Lord, my salvation!
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Pray Aloud:
Father, help __________
to glorify You in every way.
Reveal Your beauty in _________
as it is in Heaven.
Give _________ daily bread,
and thank You
for Your undeserved mercy.
Help us to forgive others.
Keep __________heart soft for You,
for Your Word, for prayer,
and for those that You put in their life,
that they may keep their heart
from evil and sin.
Thank You for Your grace and mercy.
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