Prayer In Faith Will Heal

May 9-10, 2011

James 5:14-15 “Is any one of you sick?  He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up.  If he has sinned, he will be forgiven.”

            Lord, it appears that the gift of healing had been taken from the church by this time as You did not instruct to find a person with the gift and call him or her to come. I must confess, Lord, that these verses are hard for me and I need the Holy Spirit’s instruction.  The instruction is plain enough, but how does modern medicine play into this.  Are we to ignore MRIs CT scans, ultrasounds, medications and surgeries and just call the elders to come pray and anoint?  It would seem so, but somehow I doubt it.  However; I have seen you work miracles in my son’s and husband’s lives with their illnesses when “medicine” seemed to be failing simply because people were praying in faith.

            In my lifetime, and probably throughout history, there have been charlatan “Faith Healers” who claim to have special powers.  The Charismatic Movement has purported much of it in my era.  Do I believe You can and want to heal people? Absolutely!  I believe it grieves You as You did not create us to be sickly in the beginning, but it is sin that causes all of this.  Like Job, many righteous have suffered grave illnesses not because of their own sin, but because of sin caused by the Fall.  It also seems that it is the prayer in faith of the elders that brings Your healing whether the one being prayed for has faith or not because You say that if he has sinned, his sins will be forgiven.  James is writing to the brethren in the churches, so I would surmise that he is not talking about unbelievers here.


            Our prayer lists grow daily filled with disease, injury, sickness, broken lives and families.  We pray for healing and for Your will to be done.  Some are healed and some are not but continue to suffer greatly.  The elders came and prayed over my husband and he seems to be better for it…not totally healed, but much better.  Lord, help my faith to be stronger, like the mustard seed!