Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results. – James 5:16 NLT
An awkward silence fell between my partner and I as we stared uncomfortably at each other in the corner of our church’s youth room.
Our youth pastor had just finished a message on prayer. He ended his talk a few minutes early and had us break off into pairs to pray with each other as a way of putting the sermon into practice. It was a great idea, but we needed to figure out where to begin. When staring at each other got weird (which took all of 7 seconds), we took turns staring at our feet and the wall until our youth pastor mercifully called us back. To say we were relieved would be an understatement.
Sometimes praying with other believers can be awkward. We know it’s something we should do, but oftentimes we get so busy with everything we already have going on in our lives. Sometimes we get so self-conscious of how we look and sound to the people we’re praying with we tend to avoid any kind of corporate prayer at all. As a result, we miss out on the blessings God has ready and waiting for us.
In today’s verse, the Apostle James encourages believers to confess their sins to each other and pray together regularly. When James says to confess our sins to each other, he’s not saying that we should confess every sin to everyone we pray with every time we pray. We don’t need to go through another person to receive God’s forgiveness.
He wrote this because sin grows in the dark but withers in the light of day. When we confess our sins to a few trusted believers, it greatly diminishes the hold sin has on our lives.
James writes that praying with other Christians can lead to healing and has beautiful results. However, that doesn’t mean that praying with other believers will guarantee the outcome we want. Instead, James says that praying regularly with other believers paves the way for us to experience more of God’s power in our lives.
So, how can we go about praying with other believers in a less awkward way than the one I experienced that Sunday morning in middle school?
Maybe for you, it’s meeting with a friend or group of friends to pray with each other 5-10 minutes before school or work once a week.
Maybe it’s joining a Bible study or small group at your church and taking the last few minutes of your time together to share prayer requests and to go around the group and pray aloud for each other.
It could be meeting with a co-worker who’s a believer over lunch every other Wednesday and praying for whatever is most pressing in your life in that season.
Or you could meet a friend over coffee or Facetime once a month to catch up and spend a minute or two at the end lifting your needs up to the Lord together.
Praying with other believers doesn’t have to be lengthy (the Lord’s prayer in Matthew 6:9-13 is less than one-minute long), and your prayers don’t need to be eloquent. God wants you to talk with Him the way you would your best friend. What matters most to your Heavenly Father is that you’re praying with other believers regularly from your heart.
The Message translation paraphrases James 5:16 to say, “Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you can live together whole and healed. The prayer of a person living right with God is something powerful to be reckoned with.”
To experience more of God’s power in your life, regularly pray for and with other believers in your life.
Dig Deeper
1. When do you feel you struggle to pray with other believers? What do you think God wants to say to you about those struggles?
2. Find one or two believers you trust and schedule a time once a week or month to pray together. Share 1-3 prayer requests and spend a few minutes praying for each other’s needs together.
