The Prayer of Faith

[Christsfreeservant]

“Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. 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. 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. 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. 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. Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit.” (James 5:13-18 ESV)​

Now, I am going to admit upfront here that I am not well-versed in this subject of divine healing, so I am just going to share here with you what I believe the Lord Jesus is sharing with me as I read these words, and I am not going to debate this issue with anyone. For I believe the Scriptures give us both examples of those God/Jesus healed and those he did not heal. And God has his reasons for both, for he heals us in so many different ways.

The first instruction here is that if we are suffering that we should pray. Amen to that! And if we are cheerful, we should sing praise, even if we don’t have good voices or if our voices are nearly shot due to old age. And then it instructs us to call for the elders if we are sick and to let them pray over us, and the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. But then why did God not heal Paul when he prayed in faith?

Okay, so I am looking at the Greek Interlinear on these words at biblehub.com so that I have a better biblical understanding of what this is teaching. And this word “sick” is defined as “to be ill, without strength; to languish; to be weak (physically, morally), feeble.” And to languish is to suffer, weaken, fail, decline, etc., so it appears that this covers a broader subject than just physical illness.

With regard to calling upon the elders, many “church” congregations do not even have elders, but they have deacons, or they regard their pastor(s) as the elder(s). And in our day and age, many of these men are voted into these positions by the congregation based on popularity and not on spiritual biblical qualifications. So just because someone has the title of “elder,” “pastor,” “deacon,” or “clergy,” it does not mean he is a biblical elder.

But what I want to focus on here is “the prayer of faith.” For faith comes from God, it is authored and perfected by Jesus Christ, it is gifted to us by God, it is persuaded of God, and it is not of our own doing – not of the will nor of the flesh of man. But it has to be exercised by us, i.e. we have to be the ones to put that faith into practice. But we do so in the power of God and in his strength, and according to the will of God.

[Heb 12:1-2; Eph 2:8-10; John 1:12-13; John 6:44; Rom 6:1-23]

And do you remember Jesus’ prayer in the garden right before he was arrested and put to death on a cross? “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.” And what was that cup? It was the cup of suffering he was about to endure on that cross, which was necessary for the salvation of human lives. For in his death he put our sins to death with him so we might die to sin and live to righteousness.

And the apostle Paul said this in 2 Corinthians 12:7-10 ESV:

“So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”​

Now, Paul’s weakness was not sin in his life, like many people like to claim (for other writings on this subject see links at end of this). And God does not refuse to heal us of sin, for Jesus died that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. And God’s power is not perfected in our sins, and Paul would not be boasting of his sins, if sin was his “thorn in the flesh.” That would be absolutely contrary to the teachings of Christ and of his NT apostles.

Yet it appears that Paul’s “thorn in the flesh” was some kind of physical suffering, which could have been his blindness, but we don’t know for sure. And there is no mention of him calling for the elders, but he went directly to God in prayer, and God’s answer to him was “No,” basically. For whatever this physical weakness was, God was going to use it in Paul’s life to keep him humble and so that God could display His power through the life of Paul.

And a modern-day example of this might be, but not an exact parallel, the life of Joni Eareckson Tada, who had an accident when she was a teenager which left her a quadriplegic the rest of her life, and she and I are the same age (74), so a very long time. She prayed for healing, too, but God had other plans for her life, for he displays his power in her weaknesses, I believe, too, and she has ministered God’s grace to so many people’s lives.

So, my belief on this subject is that it is the prayer of faith which heals, and that faith comes from God, and we need to pray according to the will of God. And sometimes his answer to us is “No” because he is going to use our physical ailments in our lives to humble us, and so that he can use us in ways we might not have ever thought would be possible if he had healed us physically, as we had hoped.

But is God still in the healing business? Absolutely!! I am a firm believer in divine healing, and that God still heals according to his will and purpose. He had me stop taking medicine sixteen years ago, and I have remained pharmaceutical independent since then, all glory to God, regardless of pain and suffering. But he carries me through it all. And he does not promise us lives free from suffering, either. But he heals us in so many different ways!

Hear My Cry

By G. M. Eldridge

When my soul is worn and weary
And my eyes are filled with grief,
When my hands in desperation
Reach to heaven for relief,

Would I find the words there waiting
If I had the strength to start?
Could a mortal tongue interpret
All the sorrow of a heart?

Spirit, search me in my weakness,
And discern this growing gray.
Intercede in understanding,
Hear the things I cannot say.

Hear my cry, heav’nly Father,
You have known my ev’ry pain.
You have seen all my sorrow,
Hear my cry once again.

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(1) Was Paul a Hypocrite? II
(2) Paul said, “Be Imitators of Me”