Monday, September 11, 2006
James 5:16 Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed.
LIVE THE LOVE OF CHRIST
The latest Luther film at one point shows the Reformer preaching, not from the pulpit, but walking among the people of his congregation. I'm not sure that's literally accurate but what the film thereby conveyed was true -- Luther was in touch with his parishioners because he cared about them deeply -- cared about them as sheep of God's own flock, bought with Christ's own blood.
In James 5 the inspired writer makes it plain that Luther's love for his fellow Christians was not something the Spirit of God works in a select few, or only in a church's called servants. The gospel, God's love in Christ, creates that same kind of love in every heart it makes Christ's own. But since we live in a world where genuine self-less care is rare, James makes a point to describe the attitudes and actions that will characterize Christ's people in their relationships with each other.
Our Lord's brother urges fellow members of Christian congregations to live out a brotherly care and concern for each other which will be a reflection of Christ's love -- and powered by it.
James describes three situations in which love for one another will lead us as Christians to act out of love on behalf of each other (our text includes two of them): sickness, distress of conscience, and defection from the truth. Let us note and remember three things today.
1) We need to go to our fellow Christ-believers expecting them to respond to our needs with Christ's own love.
2) We need to recognize that matters that involve our faith's health should be our #1 concern.
3) The healing we need most comes when we are assured that the sin that distresses us so deeply has been completely removed from heaven's ledgers by the "paid in full" Jesus wrote there with his own blood.
