Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Is any sick among you? 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: And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him. Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. James 5:14-16a
Dealing with sickness, especially sickness that is life threatening can be some of the most difficult experience we go through in life. James describes here a specific situation about how we should pray for those who are sick. Warren Werisbe makes this statement about the following verses that I agree with: “I do not think that James gave us a blanket formula for healing the sick…” He then goes on to talk about the specific circumstances of the case that James has written about.
First, the person who is sick and needs prayer in this scenario is sick because of sin. (v.15b-16). James is describing a person who is sick because He is being disciplined by God. (1 Corinthians 11:30). He must call the elders of the church because either he is too sick, or is under church discipline and must do this as a next step to be restored. To understand church discipline look at Matthew 18 and 1 Corinthains 5.
Second, the person confesses his sins. (v.16) This was the point and expectation of church discipline, that the man would come to a place of confession and repentance.
Third, the person is healed by “the prayer of faith”. (v.15) Anointing someone with oil (14) in the Bible was symbolic of cleansing. The “anointing” could also be interpreted as “rubbing” or “massaging”, which may indicate a medicinal element to this scenario. Either way, the “prayer of faith” is the important element here, that this man has confessed to God and man, and that this prayer is a prayer of hope and belief that God can heal, and will heal if it is his will.
There are some who teach (especially the “name it and claim it” prosperity preachers on TV)that God is obligated to heal us if we have enough faith. They would say that if you are sick you don’t have enough faith. They take this phrase–“And the prayer of faith shall save the sick”–and apply it as a promise that God is obligated to no matter what the scenario.
What we really see about this phrase is that the person who is sick because of the discipline of God has only one hope of getting right. There must be confession of his sin and prayer for healing. If that person wants God to heal Him, that is the solution.
Application: The Bible says that God does discipline his children. Is there something that you need to confess today? Pray. Get right with God! He will forgive.
Study the Scriptures with Ben Jennings 
There is somethIng I need to confess about well everyone has something to confess to something bad they did or something bad they said…but I need to confess my son to god and I know that he will forgive me because it says in the bible that he will if I just confess he will forgive me 🙂
So true! If u confess ur sins to god he will forgive you!!!!! It’s amazing! Cuz maybe some people in ur life won’t forgive u for what u did but god will!!!!! 🙂
It is pretty cool that God forgives. What are some other things that you learned from the verses?
I love that God will forgive me every time I ask him!
At first, this verse was kind of confusing for me but I think I get it now! Just like parents discipline their kids when they do something that’s wrong, God sometimes has to discipline us when we’re not doing what’s right. When I was younger I would think that God wouldn’t discipline me because He loves me! But I’ve realized since then that it’s because He loves me that He disciplines me so I stay close in my relationship with Him 🙂
There’s nothing really that I need to confess today, this would have been perfect for me yesterday, but I’m glad I got to read about it though 🙂 See you guys tomorrow!
at first this was a little confusing.but now it makes sense.just like our parents have 2 disipline us God does 2.i used 2 think he disiplined us cause he loves us too! well,basicly alexis put what i had in mind Good job! and everyone else too! see ya’ll tmrw!!!!!!! 🙂 <33333
Great points everyone!
I’m so pumped for tomorrow night’s H2O…We’ll have a special guest here btw 🙂
i think i know who it is……….. 🙂
This kind of confuses me, because what I thought you were saying is that….. If we are ever sick, it’s because we did something wrong and we’ve sinned. So, if I lie to my parents I’ll get sick?
Or does it mean..like since there is sin in the world we can get sick now. Since the world isn’t perfect anymore.
I dunno…..it kind of doesn’t make sense
Then the other part is saying that when we are sick we should pray for healing and when we sin we should ask God for forgiveness. God will always forgive us, so we can always count on him.
I mean, c’mon! He made an exception for all us sinners by giving up his son to die a horrible death for us. Adam and Eve disobeyed him so it was their fault for all the ruin, but God, being the loving God he is, gave up his only and BELOVED son just for us. Like I said…he didn’t have to! He did it because he’s forgiving and loving
I feel like there is always something I need to confess to God. I mess up a lot and sometimes I forget to go to God with it & ask for forgiveness. That’s most of the time actually
but I’m trying to focus on what’s important in life instead of lingering on the bad. God, family, church, grades! I don’t want anything to ever get in between all of that, because that’s who I am! I I screw up a lot, and I’m learning everyday what kinda discipline God puts in my life. I feel Him tugging on my heart when I know somethings not completely what it should be, or a hard decision I need to make. He leads me in the right direction, & sometimes I don’t listen to what God’s telling me.. Which is completely selfish! But I’m working on it everyday. We are healed by ‘the prayer of faith’, and even when I mess up I know that thru prayer, God forgives me! Its so cool 🙂
& YAY for special guests! I wanna know, lol see you guys tomorrow
We all mess up and one of the cool things about God is that He will forgive us when we ask. Its like that dont be double minded in prayer, mean what you ask.
“And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up;”
Pretty self explanatory, yet we make it so complicated! We don’t always release our sickness to God.. What do I mean by that? We don’t always give up our sins to God. Sometimes we don’t even acknowledge our sins until later on. This is a problem, because these sins can over take us if we let it go too long. “and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.” We will be forgiven of our sins if we confess them to God through prayer! Crazy how much we can mess up and God still forgives us. You know what’s even crazier though? Sometimes we don’t even confess our sins. I know this was my case for awhile. I was wrapped up in sins and I was ashamed and at one point even ashamed to confess them to God. I was ashamed to see what I was becoming, a liar, hurting my family, doing things I shouldn’t that playing them back in my head was shocking. I let sins build up and up that my “sickness” was overtaking me and bringing me down, and my only cure was to pray for forgiveness to God. I waited so long to do what I should’ve done in the first place. God is above all things, and even though it kills Him to watch what we do, He’s a God of second chances and thankfully third, and fourth and fifth chances. It might take us awhile to realize we messed up, but the grace of God overthrows our mistakes and forgives us despite our actions. That’s true love right there!
So excited for youth group tonight and to finish up Picture Perfect. Been a great series so far and I’ve really learned a lot and it’s helped me! Can’t wait 🙂
Oh and can’t wait to see who our guest is… #BL 🙂