Powerful Prayer: Confessing our faults

When we think in terms of powerful prayer, immediately certain people come to mind with accompanying thoughts, “Well, I could never pray like sister so-and so. She has prayed for so many years and when she prays it is so powerful! I just could never pray like that!” But James wants believers to know powerful praying is available to everyone. James gives us the key to open ourselves to effectual prayer: Confessing our sins, one to another.

James 5:16:

Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.

The Greek word for “faults” is hamartia and it is translated “sins.” All of us have faults that can be rectified in our lives through application of the Word. But this verse is referring to sins that must be confessed. Not only are we to confess these sins to the Lord, we are to confess them to one another and then pray for one another that we may be healed.

The Greek for “the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much,” would more accurately be translated, “the powerful, operative prayer of a righteous man prevails much.” Our prayers need to be powerful so they will prevail in the presence of God, they will prevail over Satan, and they will prevail over circumstances. God wants our prayers to be powerful.

I have heard ministers comment about “tremendous” services where a member of the congregation has stood before everyone and confessed his or her sins, based upon James 5:16. That is not what this verse means. God highly respects your privacy. Our repentance from sin is between the Lord and us. When God forgives, He forgets. He never broadcasts our sins from one end of heaven to the other. Sometimes, one of the worst things you can do is confidentially tell someone what you’ve done because often you will find that it has been spread to others. God will never do that to us. James 5:16 does not refer to public confession of sin.

When James says, “Confess your sins, one to another,” he is referring to confessing your sins to the one you have wronged. Both of you know it is there but you’ve been ignoring it and hoping it will just go away or you’ve just been covering it up. You see the person you have wronged and you go the other direction. You try not to sit anywhere near them in church. You do your very best to ignore them. Through the years, it just keeps growing and soon you are controlled by one sin. James 5:17 is telling us that not dealing with this sin will hold back God’s blessings, including divine healing. God wants to pour out many blessings upon our lives but is waiting for us to make things right between our brothers and sisters. As long as we harbor things against fellow believers, we cannot be healed. We cannot be healed in our body. We cannot be healed in our finances. We cannot be healed from depression. But as soon as we become doers of verse 17, God’s healing, anointing, and blessing are poured out on our life.

James 5:17-18:

Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that is might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months.

And he prayed again, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit.