April 18 Daily Devotional

Scripture for Day 108—James 5:14–16

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. ¹⁶ 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.

Devotional:

The purpose of these verses is still to call us to pray with and for each other in the church. But now God encourages such prayer by depicting how he expects it to operate in the church. In a healthy church, among other things, the members will call on the elders of the church for prayer. "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."

This appears to be talking about an especially grave illness. The person can't even go to the elders; the elders have to go to him. Even so, notice that God insists that the sick person must take the initiative—"Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church." Often people grumble because their pastors and elders lack the clairvoyance to initiate this process. But God says, "Stop grumbling. I've put the ball in your court."

There's nothing magic about this (by "magic," I mean going through specific motions in order to get specific results from God.) The fact that the sick person calls is an expression of faith in God, which is a condition for effective prayer. It is "the prayer of faith [that] will save the one who is sick" (v. 15).

Click here for background on the author of Are You For Real?: Meditations in the Epistle of James for Secret or Family Worship.