How do we live a life of faith every day? Well, that depends on what’s going on in your life, doesn’t it? As verse 13 says, maybe everything is going well for you today, so you are in a cheerful mood. Those who put their trust in themselves might feel smug under such conditions, being glad for their own wisdom or skill or foresight. But those who are trusting in God will naturally sing God’s praise, giving God the credit and the glory, and offering prayers of thanksgiving for all the blessings they experience.

But maybe the opposite is true. Maybe you are suffering in some way because of sickness or grief or some other source of heartache. In such circumstances, those who don’t trust God often give themselves over to worry, or perhaps to bitterness if they think they deserve something better. Or perhaps they fall into discouragement or despair, having no hope that things will ever get better.

But for those who trust God, James urges us to pray, to look to God for the answers to all our problems. But he also encourages us to show our faith in God by reaching out to other Christians. After all, if we are all part of the same Body of Christ, we should expect God to give us some of His blessings through the ministry of other believers.

That’s why in verse 14 James encourages the sick to ask other Christians, especially those they trust and respect enough to elect as elders of the church, to pray for them. For as he says in verse 15, it is prayers of faith that are ultimately responsible for any sort of physical healing that comes our way.

And the same sort of prayers can also bring spiritual healing. Sure, we can and should confess our sins privately to God, whenever we realize that our lives are out of alignment with His good and perfect will. But in verse 16 James points to the additional blessing that comes from confessing our sins to one another. Somehow, having other Christians pray for us as we wrestle with temptations and besetting sins helps us overcome those things.

And that’s perhaps the most amazing truth of all – that God would choose to use the prayers of His people to accomplish His will in the lives of others. James closes with the example of how God used the prayers of Elijah to bring a drought upon the land of Israel so that the people might come to understand their sin and turn back to God (vv. 17-18). In the same way, to the extent that our thoughts and feelings and prayers line up with God’s desires as they are expressed in His Word, we should expect God to do great things, not only in our own lives, but in the lives of all those for whom we pray.

So – let us pray.

James 5:13-20 (ESV)

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.
19 My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back,
20 let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.