In James 5:14-16, we read, “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.”
Here in verse 14, James says we are to call on the elders of the church to pray over us and anoint us with oil in the name of Yehovah. First of all, we have to ask, who are the elders of the church?
1.Tim 3 and Titus 1 tell us an elder in the church obeys Moses’s law. So, according to the Bible, you can not be an elder in the church if you reject the law of Moses.
James then goes on to say; our healing depends on the faith of the elders. How much or how little faith we have does not matter in this case; it all depends on the elders’ faith. If they believe we will be healed, then we will be healed. It does not say we might be cured; it says we will be healed no matter how much or how little faith we have.
In the following verses, James says sometimes sickness is caused by sin in our lives. We see this in 1. John and Deut 28 say if we break the law of Moses, there will be consequences, and one of the consequences will be disease and sickness. If we confess our sins and ask for the elders to pray for us, James 5:14-16 guarantees we will be healed.
In the last verse, James says the prayer of someone who obeys the law of Moses is powerful and effective. Peter says, in 1.Peter 3:12, Yehovah only listens to the prayer of a person who follows the law of Moses. This is why James says, in verse 14, we are to call on the elders of the church and have them pray for us.
So what should you do if you get sick?
Find someone who obeys the law of Moses, and make sure they trust Yehovah is our healer. Have them pray for you and anoint you with oil. Then you can know for sure Yehovah will heal you, but you will never know how or when He will heal you.
The Bible says Yehovah is guaranteed to heal us, but it never says how He will heal us or even when. In the story of Naaman in 2 Kings 5, Naaman almost lost his healing because he wanted to be healed in a certain way. When Elisha told him to wash himself seven times in the Jordan, Naaman would at first not believe him. When he chose to believe and obey what Elisha had said, he was healed instantly.
We must not make the same mistake as Naaman; we have to leave the how and the when up to Yehovah and rest, trusting that He will heal us.
Do you need healing?
Find someone who obeys the law of Moses and believes He is our healer. Ask them to pray for you, and if you have broken the law, confess your sin and ask them to pray for Yehovah to heal you. Repent of breaking the law and start obeying it; then you will be healed. (Isaiah 53)
[wpedon id=”383″]