God answers prayer – Be Still…

James 5:13-18 – The Power of Prayer

Read James 5:13-18

What happens when we pray, and no healing takes place? I’m sure you’ve had that happen in your life. Wrestling with God in those moments is difficult. We can feel like God has left us behind or turned a deaf ear to our cries!

Some of us blame God and even turn away. That’s never the answer. God has his reasons for answering prayer the way he does. Not healing is God saying no to our request. I learned a long time ago it doesn’t do any good to get mad at God or demand my way. I may never understand why God allowed someone else to be healed but not the person I prayed about. I trust God knows best, even when I cannot see.

James 1:1-8 – Trials of Life

Read James 1:1-8

As I read from James, I can’t help but try to picture what it was like to be Jesus’ earthly brother. (This book is believed to be written by Jesus’ half-brother, not James the apostle.) What would the sibling rivalry have looked like? We don’t know much about Jesus as a child, teenager, or young man. As Jesus’ brother, James would have an interesting perspective to be sure. Yet curiously, James identifies himself in the opening as “a slave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.” James has taken his own place in helping others navigate their lives as followers of Christ.

In this letter from James, we’ll see how he tries to set things straight in terms of living a Christian life. It’s so much more than just saying you’re a Christian. The truths you’ll uncover could be summed up as a “how-to” for Christian living. Even though James wasn’t one of the chosen twelve, he was a leader in the early church having stayed in Jerusalem to begin his ministry there to Jewish Christians. His target audience for this letter are the persecuted Christians in hostile surroundings, much like we experience in our own trials of faith.

2 Kings 20:1-11 – Can God Change His Mind?

Read 2 Kings 20:1-11

Have you ever been part of a discussion where the topic is “whether God ever changes his mind?” This is especially a key concept for our prayer lives. Hezekiah didn’t want to die, and he made that abundantly clear to God in his prayers. God’s mind had been made up, as we can see through Isaiah’s prediction of Hezekiah’s death.

This notion the king wouldn’t survive this illness wasn’t Isaiah’s idea. Nobody just makes up the idea somebody else is going to die and then say it’s a word from God. Do they? No, Hezekiah’s time was coming, and God wanted him to know. Knowing when you’re going to die, that, in and of itself is amazing! How many people get privy to “intel” like that? I’m sure it was infrequent in Hezekiah’s day, too.