James 5:13-18
Scripture
13 Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. 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. 17 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. 18 Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit.
Devotion
As James draws his letter toward its close, he returns again and again to a single practice that he expects to run through every season of the believer’s life. Whether a person is suffering, cheerful, sick, or weighed down by sin, James points them toward God in prayer, and he does so with a confidence that assumes the Lord is listening. In just six verses, some form of the word pray appears seven times, which tells us how central this practice was to the life of the early church and how central it should be to ours.
It is worth noticing how ordinary the situations in this passage are. James speaks to people who are hurting, people who are happy, people lying in bed with an illness, and people carrying the weight of something they have done wrong, which describes most of us in any given week. He then closes with the example of Elijah, a prophet whose prayers were answered in the withholding and sending of rain, and he reminds his readers that Elijah was a man with a nature like ours.
This week, we will walk through James 5:13-18 together using the HEAR method: Highlight, Explain, Apply, and Respond. Along the way, we will read the account of Elijah praying for rain in 1 Kings 18 and the parable Jesus told in Luke 18 about a widow who kept returning to a judge until she received justice. By Sunday, you will have spent a full week thinking about prayer, and our hope is that you will have spent much of that week praying as well.
Today, simply read the passage slowly, aloud if you are able, and ask the Holy Spirit what He wants you to see in it. Write down whatever word or phrase He brings to your attention.
HEAR About It
Highlight
Write down the verse, phrase, or word the Holy Spirit highlighted for you. Why did it stand out? What might God be saying to you through it?
Prayer and Reflection
Take a few minutes to sit quietly and reflect on the passage you read today. Let the Holy Spirit bring to mind what stood out to you and why. Then spend some time in prayer. Pray for the people around you, for your outlook on this day, and for the needs you are carrying in your own life.
Lord, as I begin this week in a passage about prayer, I confess that I often come to You only after I have tried everything else. Teach me to bring every part of my life to You, whether I am hurting or rejoicing, and open my eyes to see what You want to show me in Your Word. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
