Ep 247 – 1 John 5:13-21 PT 3

This is episode three on 1 John, chapter five, verses 13-21. It's entitled, "Practical Prayer" and deals with a matter that each of us as believers should take to heart: Our prayers on behalf of a sinning brother or sister in Christ. Not only are we to take sin seriously in our own lives, we are to care deeply about the sin that we see in one another's lives. And John tells us we are to pray. We are to lift up our fellow believer to the throne of God, asking that God will give them life. In essence, we are to pray for their restoration to fellowship with God. Sin breaks that fellowship. It puts a barrier between God and the one who has unrepentant sin in their life. We are to ask God to open their eyes to the reality of their sin so that they might confess it and be forgiven by God and restored to a right relationship with Him. Sin in the body of Christ is dangerous. It can spread like a cancer, eventually infecting all those with whom it comes into contact. That is why we are to pray. Prayer is an expression of our love for the one in sin. This does not mean we are free from having to confront the sins in one another. We have an obligation to speak truth into one another's lives, and that includes lovingly pointing out the sins that we see being committed by those we call our brothers and sisters in Christ.