Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.  James 5:16

 

Create in me a pure heart O God and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Psalm 51:10

 

Cast your cares on the LORD and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous be shaken. Psalm 55:22

 

Confess sins: Two words that seem rather old-fashioned in today’s self-help and self-sufficient world. But these two words should be part of our daily vocabulary. Why? Because they are the secret to right living (righteousness). We cannot live in harmony with each other or with God unless we are reconciled with them. What kind of prayers are powerful and effective? The ones of a righteous person. Righteousness is not being ‘holier-than-thou.’  Righteous means being humble (reconciled) before God and others.

 

Righteousness involves asking God for a pure heart and a steadfast (right) spirit to live in us. It means being loyal, faithful, committed, dependable, trustworthy.  These are the qualities you seek in your closest friends; they are also the same qualities we need to demonstrate in order for us to be friends. It takes more than singing a song to be friends of God. We need to act like a real friend, one with a steadfast heart.

 

When we confess our sins and continually ask God for a clean heart, we finally find the capacity to truly cast our cares upon the Lord. Oh, we try to cast them on Him even when we remain in our sin. But it is a clean heart, a right conscience that allows us to really let them go.  When we hold onto our sins and our anxieties we are never fully at peace. We say ‘Time heals all wounds’ and ‘this too shall pass.’  But time alone is a lousy healer and ‘this too’ sometimes doesn’t pass, at least in this lifetime. Time allows a wound to scar. Forgiveness allows it to be fully healed.

 

Our health can be shaken, our finances decimated. Relationships are sometimes severed and we can be hard pressed in so very many ways. But God promises “He will never let the righteous be shaken.” How can you have this unshakable life? God says:

• Confess your sins to each other and to God.
• Ask God to create in you a pure heart.
• Cast your cares on God and let HIM sustain you.

 

Enjoy the unshakable peace of God today.