Marks of the Mature
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WEEK 15 HOW TO PRAY ABOUT YOUR PROBLEMS WEEKLY BIBLE READING: James 5:13-20 (NIV) 13Is any one of you in trouble? He should pray. Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs of praise. 14Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. 15And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. 16Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. 17Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. 18Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops. 19My brothers, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring him back, 20remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way will save him from death and cover over a multitude of sins. How To Pray About Your Problems James 5: 13-20 Day 1 PRAYING THROUGH ADVERSITY James 5: 13 Are any among you suffering? They should keep on praying about it. And those who have reason to be thankful should continually sing praises to the Lord. James has talked a lot about speech and the control of our tongue. Most of it has been in the negative. This week, we will be looking at the positive aspect of what we do with our tongue. For the highest and best purpose that our tongue can engage in is that of prayer and praise to God. Prayer is a unique privilege. It is unimaginable that we can have access to a Holy God merely by using prayer. If you were to call the White House in Washington DC, you would never be able to speak to the President. You could not even get the governor on the telephone. Yet at this very moment, you can talk to the creator of the universe. It doesn’t matter if it is day or night. You can even reach God at 10:00 PM on a Sunday. Add to that, the fact that God cares enough for us to listen and to grant our requests. I can’t imagine a greater gift and a more underutilized gift in all of creation. This week, we are going to be looking at 4 different situations where God hears and answers prayer. Today we are looking at prayer that comes out of the trials and adversity of life. As a people, we do pray in tough times. That’s probably because the tendency in most of our lives is to pray harder and longer when we are in the middle of difficult times. It is especially true when we get to the point where life has us fenced in and there doesn’t seem to be any way out. As the old soldier said, “There aren’t any atheists in foxholes.” Let’s start out by saying that I will not be talking about the typical surface prayers of Christians. You know the kind of “bless me” prayers that are the most common in the 2 church today. I am talking about a deep communication between a Holy God and his beloved child. I am talking about the place where the tough questions can be asked, the place where a deep abiding peace that transcends all understanding can be felt. Remember what James talked about back in chapter 1, when he said, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind (James 1: 2-6 NIV).” When you are in the middle of tough times, it all right to ask God about it. It’s just that when you do ask; make sure that you really want to know the answer. I read about Ed Dobson, pastor of Calvary Church of Grand Rapids. In the middle of a tremendous ministry, he has been diagnosed with one of the worst diseases anyone can get, Amyotropic Lateral Sclerosis, which is also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. With that diagnosis, Ed Dobson is facing 2 years of steady deterioration of all of his muscular function, until he will finally be unable to even breathe. At that point, he will die. When asked if he was angry with God for this situation, Ed said, “From day one, I chose not to ask, ‘Why, God,’ because I feared that had the potential of causing anger. So, no, I've never been angry.” That’s James 1 at work. Ed has chosen not to know the reason behind his affliction. He feels that he is better off not knowing. Sometimes there is a need to spend some time in deep prayer with God, to get beyond the superficial. That is usually when life has you pinned down and it won’t let you up. You can do 2 things at that point. You can keep on trying to get yourself out of the situation using your own strength and cleverness. Perhaps you will succeed. I’m not sure that the very fact that you were able to get yourself out will teach you anything eternal, but you will be out of the situation. The other alternative is to schedule out some additional time to be alone with God. Go for a long walk and find a place of solitude and talk it out with Him. 3 I will warn you that God may answer your prayer in ways that you do not expect. To be sure, prayer can cause God to remove the particular trial that we are experiencing, but that is not the only way God can answer that prayer. He can also give you strength to overcome the trial. Perhaps it is His will that the trial is there in the first place. He may want you to learn something. They key here is to be patient, like we talked about last week. You need to learn to live 1 day at a time, and even moment by moment at times, to be sure that you don’t miss the point of the trial. The other piece of advice that James has for us in today’s verse is that, when we are thankful, we are to sing his praises. God balances our days, giving us both trials and joy. Mature is the Christian who learns how to sing even in the most severe of trials. Look at Paul and Silas as related by Luke in Acts 16. For doing a simple act of kindness for a slave girl, they were stripped of their clothing, beaten severely with rods and thrown in jail. With their feet in stocks and their bodies in prison, these 2 men found their hearts were in heaven. The only thing that they could do was to sing praises to God. I believe that Paul’s secret was not where his body was, but where his heart was located. If your heart is firmly rooted with God, it does not matter in what circumstances you find yourself. Look at what Paul said to his spiritual son, Timothy, “This is my gospel, for which I am suffering even to the point of being chained like a criminal. But God's word is not chained. Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they too may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus, with eternal glory (2 Timothy 2: 8-10 NIV).” Bible scholars will tell you that it was not long after these words were penned that Paul’s body was separated from his head. If you read the entire book, you get the feeling that Paul knew that he would never see freedom until he saw heaven. The entire letter is a good-bye to his friends. Yet even in the circumstances in which Paul found himself, there was joy in the fact that the God’s word was still freely spreading across the globe. 4 I don’t know where you find yourself today. Perhaps you are going through a time of trial. I would urge you to spend some time alone with God and talk it out. Make sure that you also listen to Him. Spend some of that alone time singing His praises and keep your heart dwelling on heavenly things. It will lessen the effect that turmoil can have in your life. STUDY QUESTIONS: 1. At what point during a time of adversity do you take it to God? 2. What determines when you take your adversity to God? 3. Would you characterize your normal prayers to be superficial or deep? 4. Do you tend to sing when you are happy or excited? 5. Did you spend some quality time alone with God this week? If not, when will you? 5 How To Pray About Your Problems James 5: 13-20 Day 2 THE ROLE OF THE ELDER James 5: 14, 15 Are any among you sick? They should call for the elders of the church and have them pray over them, anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord.