The Prayer of Faith

An Exposition on the Book of James Part 22

If you haven’t yet, please check out part 1 of this series. The ideas of the book of James are all centered around the idea of a perfectly forged faith that makes us perfect.

James is centered around the idea of faith. Not just a belief in something, but a belief in the very character of the person of Jesus. Unfortunately, many people have a false belief in Jesus. They believe that God wants them to be healthy wealthy and wise. The only one of those things that is true. is the last. God wants us to be wise. He may or may not want you to have a degree of health and wealth, but he may not.

Despite what some popular “Bible teachers” may say, we are not supposed to be living our best life now. There are times to weep and time to rejoice. Just because you were born into a poor family doesn’t mean that a demon of poverty – which I don’t think is biblical in the first place – is afflicting you. You don’t need some Sharmin to cash out a demon. Just because you caught cold once doesn’t mean that you were afflicted by the demon of cold. Nor does it mean that you were living in sin, but if you were you should get that right with God. Just because something negative happens to you, it doesn’t mean that thing was not God’s will. One of the main points of James is that trials are ordained by God.

With all that said, James starts to end his letter talking about prayer and healing. Prayer is appropriate when suffering afflictions. All afflictions are appropriate to bring to God in prayer. An affliction could be a physical ailment, or it could be any problem in any fashion. But he also states that the proper response to being merry or joyful is to sing psalms – Psalms are known for giving thanks to God.

James 5:13-15 KJV

Is any among you afflicted? let him pray. Is any merry? let him sing psalms.

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.