Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise. Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.
Elijah was a human being, even as we are. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops.
My brothers and sisters, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring that person back, remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of their way will save them from death and cover over a multitude of sins.
James 5:13-20
Notes
13 Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise. 14 Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. 16 Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.
The message we read about in James 5 speaks to the need for prayer. Prayer when one is in trouble and praise when there are times of great gladness. He also calls on God’s people to pray in times of sickness, but he is not referring to maladies that first come to mind, like a common cold. James is referring to the illness of sin, that can manifest in physical and spiritual ways. Man has been created tripartitely—a being with a body, soul and spirit. Although the physician can tend to our bodily wounds who then cares for the soul and the spirit?
May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
1 Thessalonians 5:23
We live in a sinful world, broken from its completeness that occurred in the Garden of Eden. We are inevitably afflicted by the ailments, worries and dangers of the world, but we have steered away from God’s deliverance in our hour of greatness need. When we fall ill we call a doctor, but what must we do if we dig even deeper and realize the injury is to the soul? In vs 14-16, we are told to meet with elders, have them pray over us and confess the wrongs we have committed. Just like a physical confession to Christ in our belief in Him as a mark of salvation, our confession to one another reconnects what had been broken, bridging the gap between the afflicter and the afflicted.
“The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective” shows that one’s heart and soul need to be healed so that one can return to right commune with God. This is not a verse that gives license to believers that if they are really good saints of the faith, all they ask will be given to them. Prayer is not a tool for fortune. Many use this verse more in the understanding of James 1:5:
If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.
James 1:5
Again what is missed is that James is specifically speaking about wisdom, not health, world possessions, money or power. Instead, when we read about the power of prayer we should recognize that if we have sinned, causing a rupture between ourselves and God (and possibly with the church and other believers) He will not know us when we call out in his name. Our open confession not only heals the breach with God but also with our fellow men and women.
17 Elijah was a human being, even as we are. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. 18 Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops.
The prophet Elijah is used as an example of someone not only fervent in prayer but also someone who did not doubt the power of God. Even so, Elijah was still a man made of flesh and blood who had moments of doubt and was overwhelmed by fear. Yet, he is the example given, because when he was called to pray and trust in God he did so. We are reminded that the same God Elijah prayed to stop the rain for three years and again prayed for God to open the heavens and let the rain fall again is the same God we pray to today. Is God less powerful today than in the time of Elijah? It is not so! We serve a mighty, loving and compassionate God who has not aged nor lost any of his strength.
19 My brothers and sisters, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring that person back, 20 remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of their way will save them from death and cover over a multitude of sins.
James closes out his letter with an earnest concern for those who have wandered from the truth. In many ways, shapes and forms we can lose our way, relying on the world or ourselves more than God. This could be trusting governments or leaders more than God, trusting technology, science and information more than trusting God and believing so highly of ourselves that we forget that we are only imitations, not gods ourselves mortal and with innumerable faults.
If any person deviates from the truth, the greatest gift, James tells us, is to bring that person back into the fold of truth not in an effort of judgment but love seeking and humility recognizing that we may find ourselves in the same position at any given time. Our community (the church) should be ready to intervene if someone is showing a disconnect from the truth and not creating our own truths that only serve ourselves. This we do and a multitude of sins are covered and another follower is saved from death.
Hatred stirs up conflict, but love covers over all wrongs.
Proverbs 10:12
Throughout this section of James, we see what it is like to have faith put up to trial. Are we doing more than our religious checklist and truly living our faith by caring for the poor and needy, praying over the sick and helping those led astray by man-created truths? God did not intend for us to have an overindulgent life here on earth focused on ourselves, but calls each of us to be good examples of the faith, speaking truth, living sacrificially and praising God for his incredible mercy with our hands and hearts open wide.
MEMORY VERses
Anders Zorn. At Prayer, 1911 or 1912. The Art Institute of Chicago
Related Verses
More verses about prayer and confession:
PRAYER INVITATION
“There is no true prayer without confession. As long as we have unconfessed sin in our soul, we are not going to have power with God in prayer. He says if we regard iniquity in our hearts, He will not hear us, much less answer. As long as we are living in any known sin, we have no power in prayer. God is not going to hear it.”
— Dwight L. Moody
MANÁ 
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