The command in James 5:16, "Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed," is an often overlooked part of Christian fellowship, but it gives us a practical way to cut the legs out from under our sin. It allows us to hold each other before the Lord as believers and grow closer to Him and each other, while practicing unified holiness. And the best news is, whatever sin we may confess, God will forgive us instantly, every time.

We must too, like David, pray this same prayer found in Psalm 139. In doing so, God draws us closer to Himself. He leads us in the way everlasting, something we do not fully comprehend. But one day we will, when we stand before God in Heaven; until then we need God's help and His Spirit's guiding.

We were made to live in community and part of that is so we can together, by the power of the Holy Spirit, fight against our sinful desires. In confession, we find freedom, hope, forgiveness, and restored relationship with our Maker. He loves you, He is for you, and He sent His Son to die and rise again for you.

I need to be washed by the cleansing blood of Christ, I cannot be clean on my own, just like River cannot! It's as simple as coming to God, admitting you're a sinner, asking for forgiveness and believing Christ died for your sins and rose from the dead. It's not about "doing all the right things," it's about putting your faith in the only one who could, Jesus. Come, and be clean!

We can’t live for God without God. We can’t put ourselves in auto-drive mode, and call it good. Our need for God’s help is obvious in the cross. We might be able to land that trick perfectly off that new rail, but we can’t truly perform up to God’s standard of perfection with our whole life. We know this because Jesus had to die. His death proves our flaws and brokenness – but it also proves His love that He would die WHILE WE WERE STILL SINNERS (Romans 5:8).

As we follow Jesus, putting in the work now and making the hard decisions to choose Him, we grow in our love for Him. When we reach eternity having lived in pursuit of pleasing Him, we have the joy of offering up our work, not as a means of salvation, but as a means of worship, at Jesus’s feet. The hard work now leads to greater joy later.

We all hunger for something more than just food. We are hungry for life. True spiritual life. The life we hunger for can only be satisfied by something outside of us, someone much greater than us. The question is: who or what do we look to for life?