7 Times in Your Life When You Must Pray | James 5:13-20

Hello everyone, today we are going to continue our series on the book of James chapter 5 verses 13 to 20 and today we are going to talk about the power of

pray

er, something that we should all do more of next. the beat hello friend welcome back to the beat my name is Alan Parra thank you all so much for tuning in if this is

your

first time here on this channel we answer frequently asked questions about the Christian faith we talk about dating and relationships from a Christian perspective and we also do all kinds of Bible-based videos, so if you're new, consider subscribing, so I decided to change it up a bit.

I'm here in my office and today we are going to review the chapter of James. 5 verses 13 to 20 just as we have always done verse by verse and what we will notice is that last week we talked about the importance of the believer being patient and remembering that these are believers that James is talking to who are experiencing difficulties, difficulties, trials and tribulations. and so he's telling them, hey, you need to be patient with others, patient with God, and then in verses 13 to 20 of today's text, he's going to tell them not only to be patient, but now he's telling them to always

pray

. let them go through difficult

times

in

your

life

and that's why we know that we should pray at all

times

no matter what, but in these first verses James gives us four very specific moments

when

we need to boost our prayer

life

and we need to seek God even more and Then , the first is that

when

we are suffering, notice that here in verse 13 it says that if any of you are suffering difficulties, you should pray and what he is basically saying here is that if you are having a very difficult time, you are experiencing misfortune. . going through trials, tribulations, whether it's in your relationships or financially or whatever, he says this is a time when you need to boost your prayer life and you need to pray even more, but the second time we need to pray it's not just when We are suffering, but every time We are flying, when everything in our lives is going pretty well, notice, he says, here any of you are happy, you should sing praises.

This is a big problem in the body of Christ because many times we treat God like a spare tire. We don't think about it until we need it right, so what he's saying here is don't wait until things are added to your life before you seek God and pray and praise God. He says no, if you are happy yes. things are going well in your life, thank God and praise God and pray even during those seasons instead of waiting until things go bad. The third time we need to pray is not just when we are suffering, when we are flying, but when we are flying. illness notice says here in verse 14 or any of you are sick you should call the elders of the church to come and pray for you anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord such a prayer offered in faith will heal the sick and the Lord will heal you now, this verse has created nightmares for biblical interpreters because on the surface it seems to suggest that you know what, if you are sick, all you have to do is call people in your church and they will lay their hands on you. a little oil on you and you will be good and you will be promised that if you pray in faith then you will be healed well, let's be very careful before jumping to that conclusion because this Greek word sick throughout the New Testament could also refer to the word weak and yes, he could be sick, but he could also be weak, so a possible translation here is that if you feel weak or if you feel sick or whatever, then call the elders of the church. and yes, they lay hands on you, put oil on you and then through prayer you can be healed.

Now let me be clear about this, putting oil on someone during these days is not what we see today, when you just put olive oil on someone's forehead. No, the oil they used on these days was believed to have medicinal purposes, so they would rub oil and massage someone and often that would make that person feel better, so whenever you come across a difficult verse like this, I want to encourage you. If you jump past this scripture and look at what the rest of the Bible has to say on the topic of prayer and healing, it is very clear that we cannot guarantee that someone will be healed just because you lay hands on them and pray for them. them, this can be seen even in a personal experience where many people who were sick had people around them who believed they were going to be healed, laid hands on them, fasted for them and prayed in faith. believing and trusting in God and for some reason due to the sovereignty of God they were not healed.

The fourth time we need to increase our prayer life is when we are sinning when we are moving away from God. Notice what it says here in verse 16. Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another so that you can be healed and so I personally believe that what this is talking about here is more of an emotional spiritual healing than a physical one because it is talking about confessing sins to one another, so this verse highlights the importance of us having people in our lives that we can turn to and pray to when we are going through seasons where we may stray and disconnect from God because of our sin.

The fifth thing that Santiago says. about prayer is that we need to pray with spiritual strength notice what he says here he says that the fervent prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results in other words what he is saying here is this, let's leave with the prayers weak, okay, let's stop with that Oh Lord just bless me or bless me or heal this person or do this on that no, he says that the effective, fervent and powerful prayer of the righteous is of great use, so whenever we go to God in prayer , let's offer a prayer with faith, but let's offer a prayer that is specific, passionate, fervent and full of power that can move the heart of God and the sixth time we need to pray is when we need the supernatural power of God.

Notice what it says here in verse 17 it says here Elisha was a human being like us, so he said he was no different than us, and yet when he honestly prayed that no rain would fall, nothing fell for three and a half years. and then when he prayed again the heavens sent rain and the earth began to produce its crops and so Elijah was a man during that time who desperately needed God to intervene in a supernatural way and guess what my friend God answered his prayer now It is not guaranteed that every time you pray for something supernatural God is going to do it, but these are the times when we definitely need to go to God and pray when we need him to do something miraculous and something supernatural in our lives and the seventh and last time. that we need to increase our prayer life, my friends, is when people get sidetracked and it doesn't specifically say prayer in this passage, but I think it's implied, look at what it says here in verse 19, my dear brothers and sisters, if anyone among you moves away from the truth and is brought back, you can be sure that whoever brings the center of the astray will save that person from death and will bring forgiveness for many sins and so if there is someone in your life in your family in your community and your church and your small group that is moving away from God and you see them moving further and further away from God in the way they live their lives and all that, this is a time when we need to pray, fast and go to God. in his name so that we can, hopefully, bring that person back and save him so that he can experience forgiveness of sins.

So, my friend, we've come to the end of the book of James, but I'm going to do one more video where I'll give you the top 10 lessons and the 10 keys that I see in the book of James as kind of an overview as we close this great study that will be next week. If you like this video, please press the "Like" button. Don't forget to share it with your friends, make sure to subscribe, check out some of the other videos on this channel. Hello, thank you all very much for watching. See you next time on the beat.