The Prayer of Faith

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
(James 5:14-15).

When was the last time you were really sick? Do you remember? It’s never fun to be sick.
Most adults hate to be sick. Our lives have to be put on hold. On the other hand, sometimes kids
like to be sick because they get to stay home from school! What do you think about that? (By
the way, don’t ever try to fake it, your parents always know a faker when they see one!)

Like we learned yesterday, prayer should always be a focus of our lives. God is always
near. He love to hear us communicate with him. In fact, he commands it for our joy!

In our verse for today, James is speaking especially of those who are sick. He says that
we should take seriously that God loves it when we cry out to him in the midst of our pain and
suffering. So much so, we should ask our leaders of the church to come and pray for us. God
has given a special role to his leaders of the church to be dedicated to studying the word and to
prayer. So when you ask your leaders at church to pray for you, they do so joyfully because this
is the calling that God has given them.

We don’t talk about this very often in our culture, but the Bible makes it clear that
sometimes people are sick because they have sinned against the Lord (1 Cor. 11:30). This is not
always that case and you shouldn’t always wonder if your sickness is from the Lord every time
you get sick. We live in a fallen world and our physical bodies just don’t work right as a result,
but sometimes people get sick because they are entrenched in sin. God can use a physical
ailment to awaken someone to their need for repentance.

This is another reason to seek the help of church leaders. If you are spiritually sick,
which has led to being physically sick, they can help you walk through whatever you are dealing
with. If you need to repent, they can guide you to God who can grant you forgiveness because of
Jesus’ work for us in his life, death, and resurrection.

Don’t try and deal with your sicknesses on your own, whether they are spiritual or
physical or both. God calls us to work together as a body in prayer for our joy and his glory.

Read Psalm 32:3-5

• What do these verses have to do with our verses in James?
• Have you ever felt sick because of sin?
• Is there anyone in your life that you could pray for right now that might be feeling this way?


Prayer

Our Father, we don’t want to hide from you. Help us to bring our sin out into the open.
Thank you that you sometimes bring healing to those who pray in faith. In Jesus’ name, Amen.