How to get healed

When we’ve been hurt by people it’s easy to lose faith in mankind in general, especially if we have opened our hearts wide open and the pain inflicted by others has run deep.  So when we read scripture verses like this:

Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed.  The  effective, fervent prayer of a righteous person avails much. –James 5:16, NKJV

we tend to recoil  in horror.  Confess our sins to another person? That’s scary. That’s running a risk we will get hurt again.  That involves taking off our armor.  So we keep to ourselves and wonder why we just can’t pray off our addiction to food, why pornography, alcohol, drug, gambling or other addictions have taken such a firm hold on us.  We wonder why we are so miserable.

Back in my early days as a Christian, I’d hear the last part of this verse quoted often from pulpits.  Pray more, get more righteous, preachers would say.  Then your prayers will be more effective.

But this is the question.  How much prayer is enough?  Is an hour enough?  How about three?  And I’d go through a checklist to see if I were righteous enough.  Did “righteous” mean I was fasting once a week? Did it mean I quit watching television?  Did it mean I had to separate myself more from worldly influences  and people of all kinds?  I never got answers to any of these questions.  No matter how long I prayed, it never seemed enough.  The proof, as far as I was concerned, was that my prayers weren’t being answered.

I stumbled a long, long time.  I started to have doubts about churches because I’d look around and see anything but joy-filled, overcoming, world-changing believers.  People were miserable although they tried to hide it.  And the leaders in the churches were the most miserable.  Their eyes (and especially their children’s eyes) told stories their lips would not.

But I knew the Bible was true.  I knew the peace in my heart was from God.  I knew Christianity held answers no other religious expression had.  My Saviour, unlike other saviours, had risen from the dead.  And then as I studied other religions and the Bible, I also came upon this truth.  Other religions said I must do this and do that if I wanted hope for a good afterlife.  Even some so-called Christains said that.  But true Christianity relied on these words from Jesus:

It is finished. –John 19:30, NKJV

The moment I had asked Jesus into my heart, I had become righteous.  Thinking I had to do this and do that  to become more righteous was a slap in the face to Jesus’ work on the cross.  He had done everything for me so I could be free.  His blood was enough.

But Jesus didn’t die on the cross so we could all of a sudden not need other people.  Even from the cross He told his beloved disciple, John, to take care of His mother.  So this brings me back to why we need to confess our sins to one another.  We need to confess our sins to one another so we will be healed.  If we have isolated ourselves and don’t ever make ourselves vulnerable to even one person, we won’t be healed.  Our addiction will follow us to the grave. Ouch.

But of course, it is unwise to confess our sin to just anyone.  We are not to cast our pearls before swine.  If you make yourself vulnerable to hard-hearted, closed-off people, they will be frightened by your vulnerability and will turn around and hurt you.  I know this from experience.  But likewise, a  friend or counselor who will listen to us and pray for us will set us free.  I also know this from experience.

Think about it.  You probably show more vulnerability and honesty to your loan officer or accountant than you do to other Christians.  The treasure that is hidden inside of you is way more important than money.  Ask the Holy Spirit who you can trust with that one thing that you’re struggling with.  You know what?  More than likely people already know what you’re hiding already anyway.  And once you confess your sin, you’ll feel so much lighter.  And one day you will wake up and that shackle around your ankle will be gone.  You’ll be healed so Jesus can use you as an instrument to heal others.