james 5:13-20

The Power of Prayer

13 Are any of you suffering hardships? You should pray. Are any of you happy? You should sing praises.14 Are any of you sick? You should call for the elders of the church to come and pray over you, anointing you with oil in the name of the Lord.15 Such a prayer offered in faith will heal the sick, and the Lord will make you well. And if you have committed any sins, you will be forgiven. 16 Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results.17 Elijah was as human as we are, and yet when he prayed earnestly that no rain would fall, none fell for three and a half years!18 Then, when he prayed again, the sky sent down rain and the earth began to yield its crops.

Restore Wandering Believers

19 My dear brothers and sisters, if someone among you wanders away from the truth and is brought back,20 you can be sure that whoever brings the sinner back will save that person from death and bring about the forgiveness of many sins.

James 5

v.13 what does james say right after, "are any of you suffering hardships?" does he say, try to take care of the problem on your own? does he say, call up a friend and try to figure it out? does he say, exhaust every single option before giving it to God? he says, "you should pray." straight up. if you're going through something, give it to God immediately. but he doesn't just mean say a quick prayer to God and see what happens. he means to fervently pray, pray with all of your heart that God would help you. we have to know that in our time of desperation, our prayers are often times so much more true and brutally honest than when we feel like we don't need prayer. shouldn't our prayers always be like this? shouldn't we always come to God with a heart knowing that nothing else that we do for ourselves is as powerful and effective as what He can do for us? james goes on to say, "are any of you happy?" and we have to see his quick response to this. he doesn't say, go paint the town and celebrate with your friends! he doesn't say, just be content with being happy and thank yourself for your happiness! he says, "you should sing praises!" if God helps you, heals you, or makes something go well in your life, shouldn't that be our first response? to praise?? of course it should! so far, we see james asking rhetorical questions and answering very quickly, what should be done in our times of suffering and in our times of blessing. when you suffer, pray, when you're happy, sing! these are the best responses to those situations! and these are the responses that God wants from us, not to take it all on our own or give the credit to ourselves, but to offer the problems up to the God who can handle anything and thank the God who renews and restores everything!

v. 14 now a little bit of background. in the early church, some of the elders would have specific spiritual gifts and they would use them over whoever needed them. in this case, james is talking about the gift of healing. they would anoint whoever needed prayer and healing with oil as a symbol of the Holy Spirit washing over the person. we have to see the importance of this. in Jesus's parable of the good samaritan, what does the samaritan do for the stripped and beaten man? he poured oil and wine on him and then took care of him. the first thing to notice here is that the first thing the elders did was pour oil on the person needing healing and the good samaritan poured oil on the battered man. the second thing we now have to look at in the light of all this is that the oil represents the Holy Spirit. so what do the elders and good samaritan do? they pour oil. they let the Holy Spirit take control of the healing, not themselves. the good samaritan poured the oil and then set the man on his own animal and took him to an inn to take care of him. this verse connects back to verse 13 of letting God take care of it first. the anointing of the oil represents us letting God take control before we even do anything!

v. 15 now james goes on to say that a prayer that is prayed in faith will heal the sick and make us well. back to verse 13, true fervent prayer is required, not half-hearted, shallow prayer. but look at what james says next. "and if you have committed any sins, you will be forgiven." isn't it strange that he puts in something about sins when we're talking about physical suffering and sickness? i think that he was trying to make a point. he's not saying because of our sin, we're sick. what we see here is james making comparison between sickness and sin. sickness and sin. have we ever thought about sin like that? that it's a sickness that creeps in when we let our immune system and our defenses down? in some ways, sin is exactly like that. and how often are we tempted to take care of our sin problems on our own?? way too often. in the same light, we need to let the Holy Spirit take control and clean us of sin. we need to pray first when struggling with sin. in the same light as sickness, we will be healed. james says, if you committed any sins, you will be forgiven. i think that's an amazing analogy when we really think about it.