October 27, 2012 – Day 20 – James 5:13-22

¹³ Is any one of you in trouble? He should pray. Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs of praise. ¹⁴ Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. ¹⁵ And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. ¹⁶ Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. ^[1]

I am regularly convicted about how little I pray. The last ten words of this particular passage give me incredible hope and haunt me at the same time. On the one hand we have the assurance of the efficacy of prayer, but on the other we are confronted with the reality of western Christianity that tends to approach prayer perfunctorily. Whenever we read of the early church praying in the book of Acts tremendous things, even miraculous things, occurred as a result of their praying. The church had great power because it believed in the power of prayer.

Our lives are often so chaotic that we spend woefully little time alone with the Lord, and when we do pray our conversations are one sided and very brief. James essentially tells his readers that communion with God is a continuous relationship. If one is in trouble they commune with God through prayer. If one is happy the communication may come through joyfully singing, but they commune nonetheless. He appears to lobby for a personal time of devotion to which every believer should commit. But then he shifts gears and makes the devotional time corporate. There are some things that need to be brought to the set leaders of the body for their intercession, things that go beyond our personal time with the Lord, things that need authoritative intercession. Hence, bring sickness to the elders so they can anoint with oil, lay hands and pray the prayer of faith.

The most critical piece in this passage is faith. Faith is the key ingredient that is missing from most of our praying. We will pray for peace or comfort, acceptance or gratitude for things not being worse before we pray for healing. James says the prayer offered in faith brings healing and forgiveness of sin. We have been seduced by the enemy of our souls into the belief that God’s power and our prayer is limited. Where is our faith that contends ‘there is nothing God cannot do?’ We cannot and dare not deny God’s sovereignty, but we can and should employ our faith and trust God to move.

Lord Jesus, please forgive our lack of prayer. Forgive our lack of confidence, belief and trust that You are indeed the great ‘I Am.’ We have lost the simple innocent faith we had when we first met You. We have become jaded and cynical believing there are certain things for which we should not and cannot pray. Restore to us that childlike faith that believes You for anything and everything. Give us the capacity to employ the measure of faith You have given to each of us. But most of all, give us a passion to commune with You. Increase our love for You and help us to sift through the business of our days to make more quality time to spend with You. Amen.