Daily Encounter: A Week-day Devotional by a staff of ACTS International.

Tuesday, August 6, 2019

"Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed."¹

Medical science, numerous self-help and recovery programs, and personal experience indicate that emotional, as well as spiritual growth is an essential and often lacking ingredient of physical health, inner peace, and meaningful relationships.

Jesus said, "Do you want to be made well/whole?"² His purpose was not only to save us from our sins and give us the gift of eternal life, but also to bring us healing and wholenessâ€"not only spiritually, but also physically, emotionally and relationally.

Sadly, many of us, even those of us who are committed to the Christian faith, still have some physical ills that could be healed. Many carry around unresolved feelings of anxiety, fear, anger, depression, guilt and shame. Some struggle with addictions, and many have never found the loving relationships the human heart craves. These are the issues/stresses that either cause or greatly aggravate many of our physical ills and relational conflicts.

As God's Word points out, in order to be healed of some, if not many, diseases we need to confess our sinsâ€"this includes our sins of the spirit such as unresolved anger, resentment, grudges, unforgiveness, bitterness, grief, guilt, fears, lack of trust in God, and so on.

Speaking personally, when I resolved a lot of buried grief by getting in touch with it and sobbing it out, I was healed of hay-fever that plagued me for years. And when I got in touch with a lot of buried anger from childhood days, expressed it creatively, and got it off my chest, I was healed of painful bursitis in both of my shoulders. When we bury our emotions, where do they go? We never bury them dead but very much alive and, what we fail to talk or weep out creatively, we will inevitably act out in one way or another destructively.

I'm not implying that if we confess all our sins that we will be cured of all ills such as being bitten by a malaria mosquito, eating bad food, or of problems that come from aging. However, if we put into practice and live by the principles found in God's Word, many of us would be a whole lot healthier, happier and more fulfilled than we presently are.

Suggested prayer: "Dear God, thank You for the guidelines that are found in your Word that, if adhered to diligently, will greatly improve my physical, mental and emotional health and lead to a more fulfilled life and loving relationships. Please help me to so live. Thank You for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully in Jesus's name, amen."

1. James 5:16 (NIV).
2. John 5:6 (NKJV).

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