Last book of James

There are many parallels to the story of Peter that James talks about. Don’t try to do the work that he talks about until you’ve received the power of salvation. With Peter, he betrayed his friends and God many times.

He finally realized He could never have enough without the power of the Holy Spirit. If we don’t have a relationship with God none of this works. We need to communicate with Him. This is prayer.

James sums this all up in chapter 5.

James 5:13-15 MSG 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.

When we suffer we must pray. Unfortunately, what we tend to do in suffering is complain and become bitter. Prayer either alleviates suffering or strengthens us through it.

Through prayer we transfer our burdens to the only one who can carry them. When we complain and don’t pray we believe the lie that He is not big enough to help us or that He does not care.

He will always give us more than we can handle because He wants us to come to Him and depend on Him.

In order to depend on Him in everything, we must sing praises when we are happy. Praise is something we do when we realize it is something God is blessing us with. Praise is a response to God's blessings. God is our audience when we praise, no one else. We must get into a posture of praise more.

It is harder in the good times to know who God is, because we aren’t depending on Him. Praise reminds us of who He is. Raising our hands is a posture that helps our minds and bodies know what we are doing. That we are praising our creator.

When we are sick we pray with others. We pray with those that are further along in their faith walk. God heals. The wrong thought, the destructive thought is that if I do everything right and go to God I will be healed. God promises to heal us. But the question is, in this life or the next?

Then, when we think that is not enough we have to ask, “when did eternity become not enough?”

Prayer allows us to process reality. When we or someone we know or love gets sick it refocuses us on Him. Mortality in front of us reminds us that we have a job to do. Prayer allows us to empathize with and support others. If you don’t know what to pray just use His words.

Jesus 5:16-18 MSG 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. Elijah, for instance, human just like us, prayed hard that it wouldn’t rain, and it didn’t—not a drop for three and a half years. Then he prayed that it would rain, and it did. The showers came and everything started growing again.

God is the only one that forgives sin, but when we don’t share it keeps us from healing. When we sin the prayer of friends is healing. We need spiritual healing to get physical healing. What we keep locked away only festers and grows.

We confess our sins to God and others and in this way we are cleaned and things like guilt and shame can’t take hold.

When we are burnt out and without hope we pray. In prayer we remember God’s character. We lose sight of the character of God when we are tired and worn out.

Matthew 11:28-30 MSG “Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”

Our God is the same God today yesterday and always.

James 5:19-20 MSG My dear friends, if you know people who have wandered off from God’s truth, don’t write them off. Go after them. Get them back and you will have rescued precious lives from destruction and prevented an epidemic of wandering away from God.

When we wander away from God the enemy is able to find his way in.

1 Peter 5:8-11 MSG Keep a cool head. Stay alert. The Devil is poised to pounce, and would like nothing better than to catch you napping. Keep your guard up. You’re not the only ones plunged into these hard times. It’s the same with Christians all over the world. So keep a firm grip on the faith. The suffering won’t last forever. It won’t be long before this generous God who has great plans for us in Christ—eternal and glorious plans they are!—will have you put together and on your feet for good. He gets the last word; yes, he does.

Every time we come back to Him He opens His arms just as the father with the prodigal son. We are implored to stay in touch with those that have walked way. We never give up.

Many times the way in which others come back to God is by seeing our healing. God is about progress not perfection. He transforms us from the inside out.

Romans 12:1-2 MSG So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

In every situation, prayer is the answer.