“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. And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord
will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.”
James
5:13-17 (ESV)
This
Sunday at both services we will have a time of healing prayer.
Right after we worship the Lord through music, the elders and I will be
at the front of the sanctuary to pray for anyone who wishes to receive prayer
for physical, emotional, spiritual, relational, or circumstantial healing.
Those who wish prayer will simply come to one of the elders, state the
prayer request and the elder will make the sign of the cross on the forehead
with oil, lay a hand on the shoulder or head and then pray for God to intervene.
It
is interesting that the word for salvation in the New Testament (written
originally in Greek) is
“sozo” which also means healing.
In other words salvation is far more than going heaven when you die.
Salvation is final and ultimate healing from all that keeps us from the
wholeness that we are intended to experience in God in this life.
In
our next life we will be fully healed.
However
in this life we get tastes of God’s healing, sometimes through miraculous
cures of disease, sometimes through miraculous marital reconciliation, sometimes
through God’s intervening to provide badly needed resources, sometimes through
God’s enabling us to make and carry through on tough, seemingly impossible
decisions, sometimes by God’s granting us a peace and confidence and strength
in the midst of unchanged circumstances.
“Every
good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of
lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.”
James
1:17 (ESV)
For
more:
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