Read: James 5:13-20
Our subject for today is intercession, a specific form of prayer in which we pray for others. We may ask for many things on their behalf, but at the bottom of all of them is the prayer that they will stay connected to God. If you have ever known that others are praying for you, you will know how powerful this type of prayer is.
In our passage for today, James starts out by asking a question: “Is any one of you in trouble?” The fact is that we probably all have something that’s troubling us right now, because we are all wounded individuals searching for wholeness in God.
As Christians, we have the tremendous privilege of approaching God any time in prayer, with whatever is on our hearts.
We also have the privilege of asking the church to pray for us, and knowing that we can be healed.
This raises some important points. Notice that the passage calls for the elders to pray and to anoint the sick person with oil. Notice also that the anointing is to be done “in the name of the Lord.” This is very important because it reminds us that God is the ultimate source of all blessing and healing. The power is not in the elders, in the oil, or even in the prayers, but in the grace of the Lord.
The text says nothing about how or when the healing will come. Nor does it rule out medical care. It simply offers us the assurance that God is able to heal His children.
That last assertion is, in fact, probably our greatest problem with this entire passage. James states without any qualification that the sick person will be healed. Period.
And yet, it is an undeniable fact that not everyone we pray for and not everyone we anoint is healed. How, then, should we pray for the sick?
Three words come to mind. We should pray:
Aggressively, because God can do immeasurably more than all we can ask or imagine;
Fervently, because the heartfelt prayers of a righteous person are powerful and effective; and
Submissively, because God understands the total situation much better than we do.
Just because we think physical healing would be best doesn’t mean that God agrees with us. And we need to understand that God’s definition of healing is not just restoring the person to their previous state of health. Healing is a very broad concept that involves coming into a right relationship with God first and foremost. Then it touches every part of life and lets us receive God’s blessings in a new and powerful way.
Someone has said that “Healing in the Bible is not becoming what we were but becoming all that God intends us to be.” When we pray for healing, we are not truly healed until we allow God to make us whole on every level of our existence. Praying for that kind of restoration is the righteous prayer that James tells us is so powerful and effective that it can make the wounded whole.