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

Monday, February 27, 2012

"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 wonderful results."¹

In response to a recent Daily Encounter on the relation between confession and healing I received the following email from a man I will call John:

"Dear Dick, I am a pastor of 39 years of age and have found what you said about confession and physical healing to be absolutely true. It has happened to me.

"This occurred after I confessed guilt regarding holding onto bitterness against a person who hurt me when I was a child. Even though I had often said that I had let the hurt and the bitterness go, I hadn't. 

"But God showed me I needed to confess and repent of my bitterness and I heeded His voice this time. And so I told this person's marriage partner, who is a dear friend of mine, that I needed forgiveness for having borne that grudge for so many years. I received itâ€"with love and affirmationâ€"and since I confessed my guilt I have lost a severe backache which had afflicted me for 17 years (and for which I had many medical sessions of manipulation, etc). You see, the root of my problem had actually been a spiritual [as well as an emotional] issue and not merely a medical/physical one.

"So, thank you for your insightful and thoroughly Biblical spiritual ministry."

God has given us directives and/or principles that cover every area of life and death. The smartest thing we can do is to adhere to and follow these.

Suggested prayer: "Dear God, thank you for your Word that contains directives and principles for healing, wholeness and happiness. Give me the hunger to learn these, the wisdom to understand them, and the good sense to apply and follow them. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus' name, amen."

See online article on Forgiveness:The Power That Heals at http://tinyurl.com/btwy7

1. James 5:16 (NLT).

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