Nashville, Tennessee, United States - The Upper Room Daily Devotional “Pray for Me” for Friday, 7 November 2014 - Scripture: James 5:13-20

Nashville, Tennessee, United States - The Upper Room Daily Devotional “Pray for Me” for Friday, 7 November 2014 - Scripture: James 5: Prayer to Be Reckoned With
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.
16-18 Make this your common practice: Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you can live together whole and healed. The prayer of a person living right with God is something powerful to be reckoned with. Elijah, for instance, human just like us, prayed hard that it wouldn’t rain, and it didn’t—not a drop for three and a half years. Then he prayed that it would rain, and it did. The showers came and everything started growing again.
19-20 My dear friends, if you know people who have wandered off from God’s truth, don’t write them off. Go after them. Get them back and you will have rescued precious lives from destruction and prevented an epidemic of wandering away from God.
The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective.(James 5:16 (NRSV))
Last year was a period of trials and tribulations for my family and me. Even though I maintain a healthy lifestyle, I began to notice some negative changes in my health. My wife and daughter urged me to see our family physician and seek medical help. My doctor quickly diagnosed several problems: high levels of sugar, urea, and creatinine in my blood, and an enlarged heart. He informed me that these conditions could cause blindness, stroke, and heart attack at any time.
Treatment began right away with medication and a very strict diet. But more importantly, I asked people to pray for me. My family, our friends, church members, and people from far away prayed for me. Indeed, my healing has become a powerful example of faith, even to friends of other faiths, including my physicians. Some even wrote letters to say, “Your faith has helped to increase our faith.” Praise the Lord!
A praying Christian community is a worshiping community. When we pray together, we bring love, faith, hope, peace, and justice to the world.
The Author: Komal Masih (Uttar Pradesh, India)
Thought for the Day: Praying for one another is a powerful testimony of our faith.
Prayer: Dear God, increase our faith and help us proclaim that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life we seek. Amen.
Prayer focus: People who pray for me
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