Faithful and Faithless
Passage for Today
James 5:12-18
13 Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. 14 Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. 16 Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. 17 Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. 18 Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit.
13 Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. 14 Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. 16 Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. 17 Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. 18 Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit.
Questions
- No matter our situation in life, what should we do?
- Is verse 15 saying that as long as you pray with faith over any physical sickness it will be healed? How do you know?
- What is the true healing James is speaking of in this passage?
Devotion
By Lifeway
James constantly points us to the fact that the Christian life is about glad-hearted obedience. After all the practical application of spiritual truth that James had addressed for five chapters, he started to close his letter with a call to prayer.
We’ve done the same thing throughout this book. At the end of each day’s personal study, you found instructions to pray about the ongoing application and expression of your faith. You were prompted to respond to what you read and to ask God to continue working in your heart so that your actions would increasingly bear the fruit of faithfulness and righteousness.
Prayer is infinitely more than a transition in our lives from our everyday routines to a spiritual moment and then back again. Prayer is ongoing communion with God.
If God is the source of our life, salvation, hope, and righteousness—and He is—then prayer is the way we approach Him in utter dependence and satisfaction. James repeatedly pointed out that knowing the right things about God isn’t the same as a faithful life in relationship with God.
Faithfulness requires relinquishing the delusion that we can be self-sovereign. It’s having our eyes opened to areas of our lives in which we’re still white-knuckled, clinging to control, so that we can let them go, fully surrendering them to the Lord.
Faith works. James’s entire letter has exhorted us to live faithfully as followers of Jesus. From beginning to end, he insisted that the Christian life puts into action our belief in God’s sovereign power and goodness.
* This devotion was found at Bible.com titled “James: Faith/Works” by Lifeway.
James constantly points us to the fact that the Christian life is about glad-hearted obedience. After all the practical application of spiritual truth that James had addressed for five chapters, he started to close his letter with a call to prayer.
We’ve done the same thing throughout this book. At the end of each day’s personal study, you found instructions to pray about the ongoing application and expression of your faith. You were prompted to respond to what you read and to ask God to continue working in your heart so that your actions would increasingly bear the fruit of faithfulness and righteousness.
Prayer is infinitely more than a transition in our lives from our everyday routines to a spiritual moment and then back again. Prayer is ongoing communion with God.
If God is the source of our life, salvation, hope, and righteousness—and He is—then prayer is the way we approach Him in utter dependence and satisfaction. James repeatedly pointed out that knowing the right things about God isn’t the same as a faithful life in relationship with God.
Faithfulness requires relinquishing the delusion that we can be self-sovereign. It’s having our eyes opened to areas of our lives in which we’re still white-knuckled, clinging to control, so that we can let them go, fully surrendering them to the Lord.
Faith works. James’s entire letter has exhorted us to live faithfully as followers of Jesus. From beginning to end, he insisted that the Christian life puts into action our belief in God’s sovereign power and goodness.
* This devotion was found at Bible.com titled “James: Faith/Works” by Lifeway.
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