Daily Devotional for March 29, 2011

James 5:13-15
Are you hurting? Pray. Do you feel great? Sing. Are you sick? Call the church leaders together to pray and anoint you with oil in the name of the Master. Believing-prayer will heal you, and Jesus will put you on your feet. And if you've sinned, you'll be forgiven—healed inside and out.

Scripture quotations from The Message. © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress, Colorado Springs, CO. All rights reserved.

Recently, it seems that I have encountered several situations that seemed somewhat hopeless… and the people involved in them felt incredibly helpless. “I don’t know what to do,” I’ve heard them say… and honestly, I’ve not had a concrete solution for them. I’ve seen e-mail requests that say, “The doctors say the only thing left to do is pray.” The truth is… in all of these situations, this should be the FIRST thing we do!

When all else fails, we turn to prayer… but the fact is that we should pray in the beginning. Even before the first sign of trouble, we should pray. And when there doesn’t seem to be any logical explanation for a person’s misbehaving, we should keep praying for them. When all efforts to “mend fences” and get along fail, we should keep praying. When doctors say, “We’re doing all we can,” we should keep asking God for His healing.

When we get good news, “Thank You, God” should be more than just a trite phrase we utter… we should sincerely stop and thank our Heavenly Father for His grace and mercy toward us and our situation. When we pray about any situation, we must trust that God will deliver the perfect outcome… and accept that it may not be the one we want or expect. But it will be the right one! God does not make mistakes!

Verse 15 says that “Believing prayer will heal you, and Jesus will put you on your feet.” Believe this for yourself and your situations. Trust God to do the heavy lifting… all YOU have to do is lift your hands and ask Him for help… and offer Him praise for His answers.

©2011 Debbie Robus

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