This Sunday, we're going to be looking at James 5:13-17, a section your bibles may have titled as "The Prayer of Faith." Given our current burden to be in specific prayer over this month, I'm glad we're in this passage at this point. The other reason I'm glad is that it affords us the specific application of praying as a church for those who are sick.
All this is built on our confidence in the gospel. Consider this quote, taken from Milton Vincent's A Gospel Primer:
"If I want my life to bloom full and loom large for the glory of God, then I must have boldness- and nothing so nourishes boldness in my like the gospel! The gospel gives me boldness first by banishing my greatest fear, the fear of God's eternal wrath. Indeed, Christ bore God's wrath upon Himself... that I might be released from the daily fear of such wrath as I think ahead to judgment day... The more I comprehend what God has done for me through Christ, the more I find myself confidently coming before God in prayer (Heb 4:16), speaking to Him in situations in which I formerly would have shrunk from Him, and offering requests that I formerly would have been too timid to offer (due either to the largeness of the request or my own sinful unworthiness)."
It's easy for us to think that God's pleasure to hear our requests is based on us moving past our unworthiness to a place of maturity or obedience. But our confidence to offer large and audacious requests (for a place to meet or for healing from sickness) is always based on Christ's character and work for us. Additionally, our confidence is rewarded by the "increased enjoyment of God and the bounty that He gives, due simply to the fact that I was daring enough to ask for what was needed." (Vincent, pg 52).
So, are you daring enough to ask God in boldness, trusting that He can be enjoyed in the process?
