Author: Kristen Kansiewicz, LMHC

“My dear brothers and sisters, if someone among you wanders away from the truth and is brought back, you can be sure that whoever brings the sinner back from wandering will save that person from death and bring about the forgiveness of many sins.”

Final words from James as we conclude our series on his letter to the early church. Whenever I am reading the end of a book of the Bible, I always ask myself why the particular words were chosen as the parting statements. Is there something we need to understand or pay attention to in these final thoughts?

It just so happens that James’ last words are life-or-death words. The early Christian followers understood that they were risking their very lives to claim faith in Jesus. In these early days of the church, there was a lot of confusion and false teaching as information could not be shared quickly and there were no systems in place for teaching theology or qualifying preachers. So holding on to the truth of the Gospel that Jesus preached was of utmost importance. You can feel the urgency here as God essentially promises a reward to anyone who brings a wayward Christian back into the fold.

God loves you. He wants you in his family. You are accepted, valued, and loved. He paid a ransom for your life once with Jesus’ death, and he’ll pay out more rewards to anyone who pulls you back into the fold when you stray. The church exists to make sure that no one goes at this Jesus-following journey alone. Cling to the truth, and cling to each other. We’ll make it if we hold on tight.

“Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results. Elijah was as human as we are, and yet when he prayed earnestly that no rain would fall, none fell for three and a half years! Then, when he prayed again, the sky sent down rain and the earth began to yield its crops.”

In yesterday’s post, we talked about prayer and about how to read the Bible well. Our experience is tainted and always held underneath Scripture as a less reliable understanding of the truth. But it is fair to ask questions of the Bible when something doesn’t seem to line up. It claims prayer will heal, but sometimes it doesn’t. What’s that about? Today’s verses help clarify some of those questions.

Prayer for an American Christian is usually a closet affair. In groups, sometimes it is a gossip affair. It is rare that we allow it to be a vulnerable affair. In these verses, public confession is described as a part of the prayer experience, listed just before another reference to healing. The word “earnest” strikes me — are we truly honest and humble when we pray? Do we even take the time to position ourselves that way with a small group of other believers? In the example given here, we see Elijah’s faithfulness to pray for three and a half years. Have any of us been able to be consistently honest, humble, and vulnerable for several years at a time? It seems like that posture is a critical piece of the puzzle for effective prayer.

The Christian life is not about getting it all right. It’s about acknowledging when you have it wrong. It’s about being honest and vulnerable with others, loving instead of marginalizing when others are honest, and aligning yourself in a position underneath God in deep humility. The prayer of this kind of person is effective. There is no question about that. Our experience of prayer is often limited to a half-version where we see half-results (or no results). Let’s not accept this as the norm, but press harder into all that the Bible describes here and move deeper into all that prayer can be.

“Are any of you suffering hardships? You should pray. Are any of you happy? You should sing praises. Are any of you sick? You should call for the elders of the church to come and pray over you, anointing you with oil in the name of the Lord. Such a prayer offered in faith will heal the sick, and the Lord will make you well. And if you have committed any sins, you will be forgiven.”

James gives us a multiple choice test in today’s verses. “Life happens. Should you: a) pray b) pray c) pray d) all of the above?” Prayer is his answer to all of life’s situations, and instead of just quickly agreeing and moving on, we should stop and ask, “Why?” What is prayer? What does it accomplish (if anything)? James says here that a prayer of healing offered in faith will heal the sick. Is that true? Plenty of people have been prayed over and have not become well. How do we reconcile those things?

These questions point us to an important principle that we need as we read the Bible. On one hand, we have what the Bible says. We have its claims about the divinity of Jesus and about itself being the inspired word of God. On the other hand, we have our personal life experiences. When we read the Bible, what should we consider? The Bible cannot be taken halfway. Because of its significant claims, we cannot take some and not all. It is either God’s inspired word as it says or it isn’t. If you have never investigated the Bible or asked if it is actually true, you should explore that. But if you have come to the decision in faith based on thorough investigation that it is true, then you have to hold it up much higher than your personal experience.  God’s claims are accurate to reality, our experiences are not so trustworthy.

Prayer is an effective tool that God has given us to participate in bringing about his kingdom. It changes things. Through prayer, people are healed. Through prayer, God receives glory. Through prayer, Satan is pushed back and spiritual battles are won. Prayer is so important that James reminds us to turn to it in every life circumstance. If your experience of prayer is that it does not “work,” then consider that your experience is heavily influenced by spiritual battles that can be lost. God will win the war, but there are battles the enemy does win. God’s will is not fully done on earth as it is in heaven, which is why Jesus taught us to pray for that reality to come in full. In these verses God is telling us to pray, so no matter what your experience, just keep praying believing that there is a reason God gave us prayer as a weapon.