Do You Now Believe?

“Behold, the hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own home, and will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone, for the Father is with me. I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”  (John 16:32–33, ESV)

‘Now we believe.’ Jesus says—‘Do you? The time is coming when you will leave Me alone.’ Many a Christian worker has left Jesus Christ alone and gone into work from a sense of duty, or from a sense of need arising out of his own particular discernment. The reason for this is the absence of the resurrection life of Jesus. The soul has got out of intimate contact with God by leaning to its own religious understanding. There is no sin in it, and no punishment attached to it; but when the soul realizes how he has hindered his understanding of Jesus Christ, and produced for himself perplexities and sorrows and difficulties, it is with shame and contrition he has to come back.

We need to rely on the resurrection life of Jesus much deeper down, to get into the habit of steadily referring everything back to Him; instead of this we make our commonsense decisions and ask God to bless them. He cannot, it is not in His domain, it is severed from reality. If we do a thing from a sense of duty, we are putting up a standard in competition with Jesus Christ. We become a ‘superior person,’ and say—‘Now in this matter I must do this and that.’ We have put our sense of duty on the throne instead of the resurrection life of Jesus. We are not told to walk in the light of conscience or of a sense of duty, but to walk in the light as God is in the light. When we do anything from a sense of duty, we can back it up by argument; when we do anything in obedience to the Lord, there is no argument possible; that is why a saint can be easily ridiculed.

Chambers, O. (1993). My utmost for his highest : Selections for the year (NIV edition.). Westwood, NJ: Barbour and Co.

Heal the Sick

“Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. ” (James 5:13–14, ESV)

It is the responsibility of the sick to call the elders of the church. When a person is so ill that he or she cannot go to church, they want the people with the most faith in the church to come and pray. Normally, when the illness is not major, the rule is ‘pray for each other’. The elders will act just like the disciples in Mk. 6:13 who must have learned it from Jesus, and anoint the sick person with oil as they pray, so their prayer is not only heard, but physically felt. The important fact is that the prayer is to the Lord and the anointing is done in the name of the Lord. It is the Lord, not the power of the prayer or the oil, who will raise him up. And that is just how James promises that the Lord will respond to the prayer offered in faith. This is not a ‘hope so’ or ‘maybe’ prayer, but a prayer which shows secure confidence that God will heal because the elders have first listened to God and have received this confidence in their hearts. It is close to Paul’s gift of faith in 1 Cor. 12:9. Such prayers take time; they are not a quick ritual or routine.

Carson, D. A. (1994). New Bible commentary : 21st century edition (4th ed.) (Jas 5:13–18). Leicester, England; Downers Grove, Ill., USA: Inter-Varsity Press.