Confessing Our Faults Or Sins That We May Be Healed

Nothing will prepare you for a miracle of healing like a deep purging of your self before the Lord. It was the half-brother of our Lord who wrote by the Spirit great words of promise to the sick in Christ’s Kingdom. James wrote, “Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him. 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.” (James 5:14-16) James is clearly teaching us that the presence of faults (unintentional error) or sin will hinder the miracle of healing and that healing of the body is part and lot of the purging of the soul before the Lord. Unintentional error or willful sin are both very destructive powers and they create negative factors of destruction in our lives.

Much of the church still believes in Divine healing; but because of shady preachers using their crusades to create their own kingdom, the whole truth has fallen into disrepute. When Divine healing moved from the church altar to the hands of healers on a stage, the matter turned sour and questionable. The church must rediscover the truth and bring the gifts of God back to His house and back to Biblical order. Isaiah settled the truth that the Messiah would bring bodily healing to the redeemed. The prophetic Spirit said, “Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.” (Isaiah 53:4-6) His wonderful words cannot fail unless we fail to believe them.

Healing of the body is always associated with the deeper matters of our spiritual state. Every one of us lives this faith life in a limited body that is best described as a frail skin tent. It is subject to the wear and tear of our daily lives as we live in an infested world of filth and rot. Most of the problems that deplete the saints of God are our own faults or unintentional errors. Created in the image of God to be His temple, our faults take a toll on our strength and our walk with God and we must regularly allow Him to purge us unto His righteousness. Someone will accuse me of tying the promises of God to our works, but that is not true. We earn nothing of GodÂ’s grace by works; but faith to believe and trust cannot arise out of a spiritually depleted life.

Our faith that brings miracles is not our faith but His faith, and it will not be manifest in a spiritually empty soul. Paul was plain with us when he declared, “But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.” (Hebrews 11:6) The pure faith that is natural and supernatural is the faith that God Himself reveals in the heart of His purged and blessed saints. When you wait on God, hunger for His righteousness, and allow Him to purge you of self and your human failures; incredible faith springs from your soul like a river. The result is all of God’s promises becoming a reality and they flood your life with Heaven’s best.

Jesus Christ healed a woman whom Satan had bowed over with a spirit of infirmity. He even did it on the Jewish Sabbath. The leaders were furious, but the Son of God never wavered. He came to save and to heal. Listen! “And ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound, lo, these eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the sabbath day? And when he had said these things, all his adversaries were ashamed: and all the people rejoiced for all the glorious things that were done by him.” (Luke 13:16-17) Matthew declared that Jesus was fulfilling this very prophecy of Isaiah. Quoting the Son of God, he stated, “That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses.” (St. Matthew 8:17)

We must learn that careless living is robbing the people of God of His miracles of healing. In our primary text for this Salty Saints James promises that “the prayer of faith will save the sick and the Lord shall raise him up.” (James 5:15a) Some of the greatest miracles I have known occurred at the moment a repentant sinner was experiencing the new birth. Every time I have been healed in my life occurred as I waited on God to purge my soul. Fifty-three years of serving Him has brought numerous miracles and they always happened as I humbled myself to hunger after righteousness. I did not need a preacher’s hand on my head. I needed a tender heart of fresh surrender and fresh purging.

Notice that James said, “Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed…” (James 5:16a) Every one of us needs a Pastor Shepherd or a fellow Christian that is a proven trustworthy saint of God with whom we can be honest and to whom we can confess our weaknesses. When this skin tent we live in has no room for self-righteousness and pride, God’s miracles will become real to us. “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.” (Psalm 51:17) This truth has never changed. Healing of our body is intimately connected to a purged soul that has flung the doors of their heart wide open to God.