We began this month looking at James chapter 5, and here at the end of the month, we will look at it again. Here is what it says in the Message Bible:
13-15 Are you hurting? Pray. Do you feel great? Sing. Are you sick? Call the church leaders together to pray and anoint you with oil in the name of the Master. Believing-prayer will heal you, and Jesus will put you on your feet. And if you’ve sinned, you’ll be forgiven—healed inside and out.
16 Make this your common practice: Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you can live together whole and healed. The prayer of a person living right with God is something powerful to be reckoned with.
The amplified Bible actually says, the prayer of a righteous man/woman makes great power available, effective in its working. So are you hurting? Pray. Do you know someone who is hurting? Pray for them! That probably means we can all be praying all the time. The world is full of hurting people. Life often comes down hard on people. We live in a fallen world. This earth has a curse on it. Bad things happen to good people. Trials and tribulation come to everyone. Storms of life fall on the saved and the unsaved. Just look at the story parable of the house built on the rock, compared to the one built on the sand. What a strong element prayer is in our own foundation.
If we want to be standing strong after the storm passes, and rise above the world’s system, there are some basics that we have to do. We walk in love, we remain under the protective covering of God’s blessings, we use our faith, we speak the name of Jesus, we wear our armor, we use our authority in Christ, we pray the promises, we pray in the spirit, and we keep our flesh under. And most of all, we PRAY. Prayer makes great power available, or as the Message Bible says, the person of prayer who is right with God is something to be reckoned with.
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