Episode 56: James 5:13-16
Transcription
Friends, my book comes out in two days! I am so excited to share it with you because I believe it will be a helpful resource and I want as many people to read my story as need to hear it. The book is a memoir and it’s a deeply personal look into caregiving and relationships. It’s called Yes, Father: A Daughter’s Journey to Forgiveness and is the hopeful story of my journey of caring for my father with Alzheimer’s while learning to forgive him for his past.
If you’ve longed to restore a broken family relationship or have cared for a parent with Alzheimer’s, you’ll relate to my struggle of hanging on to hope in the midst of difficult circumstances.
It’s available this Friday, July 29th, 2022. Head over to my website, www.ja-sellers.com, and find a link there to pick up your own copy, either ebook or paperback. I can’t wait to find out your thoughts once you’ve read it.
Today’s verse is James 5:13-16
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.
Let’s pray together.
Today, I want to first confess that I do not spend enough time in prayer. My first thought isn’t always to pray. I don’t always look to You for help in time of need. What a shame since we have verses like these that remind us how important that is, how essential, how necessary. Prayer is the backbone, the stitching, the fuel, the covering, the shield, the weapon, the instrument of our faith. Help us to embrace prayer, Jesus. Help us to remember it through every hour of our lives. Forgive us for not engaging more in time spent with You. Renew our relationship through the time we spend speaking with and listening to You.
Show us how we have built up walls against You, how we have decided we are the masters of our own destiny, how we control every step forward in our lives. We are prideful and arrogant and the sin of humanism has swept through our culture like a plague. So bring us back before You in humility, reminding us that we are Your creation. You decide who we are. You delight in teaching us, in growing us, in shepherding us, and in spending time with us. And we are so honored and grateful because of that.
We do go through hard times, LORD. There is an enemy, a desolating evil that would seek to destroy us. He has no pleasure in our happiness, in our relationship with You, or with anything that is good. So we need Your protection at every moment. We need to constantly be in communication with You, lest he cut in and tempt us from You or try to tell us that we get to decide or that we know best or that something else is more pleasurable and fulfilling than You. Thank You for never leaving our side, help us not to leave Yours.
When we go through these valleys, these sickening, grieving, painful, lonely times, help us to reach out for You. Show us that a broken world is not more powerful than You, our precious Holy Spirit, Comforter, Guide, and Healer. We need Your miracles. We need a revival of our faith. We want to see Your mighty power. We want to be bolstered by the knowledge that You are still a God of healing and power. You can put things right in ways we would never expect. You can heal cancer, You can restore the lost years, strengthen bodies, blow breath in our lungs, renew the broken synapses in our brains, and literally anything else that is wrong, You can make right. We ask You, God, in humility, in reverence, in deference to Your judgment, we ask You for these miracles.
For all sickness, disease, injury, illness, ailment, chronic condition, and wrongness in our bodies—for each person listening—God, we ask that You bring healing in the powerful name of Jesus. We ask for His blood to cover our wounds and restore us to health and wellness and wholeness. You have the power for this, Jesus. You are a Healer. We have seen it before, but we ask for it again. And we know that You are wise and kind and good and willing to make us whole.
Help us to pray for each other, to support each other, to live our lives in effective faith, doing as we read about in Your Word, boldly assuming partnership as Your hands and feet on this earth. Equip us, empower us, anoint us. Show us Your glory. Reveal it in the works You do through us. Help us follow in the example of Your Son, filled and brimming and full with the Holy Spirit. Help us to believe that now is the time for these things, now is the time for the confirmation of our faith, now is when You want us to trust You. Now is time for revival and miracles and healing.
Because now is when You are sweeping our world, revealing the evil deceptions and binding fear that has captured us. We need deliverance from these things. We need to be clear-eyed, hopeful, believing, working, compassionate, penitent, truth-telling, and vulnerable before You and with each other. None of this is accomplished without You. But You are the enabler of the strength within us, so pour it out. Unlock our potential and help us to give and share and love each other well. Help us to be practical givers, living our lives in a cruciform manner, looking to care for each other, knowing we are cared for in return, by others and by You. Mostly by You, Jesus.
Teach us to pray. Teach us to pray in power and in boldness. Teach us to pray in humility and faith. Teach us to ask and to give. Teach us to love and enjoy and revel in our time spent with You. Teach us to pray for each other, to utilize Your gifts, and to live boldly in the knowledge that You are the Great Healer. Remind us of Your power and love. Save us from the enemy of our souls and from our own wickedness. Be with us, Jesus. Restore us. Heal us. I thank You in advance for all the mighty work You are doing. Help us to celebrate it, share it, normalize it. We live with a wondrous God living inside us. Show us Your wonders.
I pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
